Dust of the Stars
by bryan0711
Summary: The Colonies believed themselves alone in the galaxy. The Cylons were their only enemy. After a confrontation between the Valkyrie BSG and Ha'tak motherships the Colonies are thrown onto the galactic scene, unprepared, for an inevitable confrontation...
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**Tartarus Alpha System, Periphery of Explored Space**

**T16/23313**

The room was more like a grotesque dungeon from some house of horrors than a prison cell. Dried blood was everywhere, peeling from the walls and ceiling and painting the room a dark maroon. Where there wasn't blood there was rust. Where there wasn't rust there was vomit stained walls and floors. Something, some internal organ, shredded and long since separated from its body, was stuck on the cell's floor and somehow hung from one of the yellow, dirty light bulbs above. It had dried and was now black and hard.

The smell had been excruciating when the prisoners had first been shoved in. They hadn't been the first to inhabit the dungeon. Now they didn't even notice the smell of their own filth. They didn't notice it when they tried to piss or shit in the small, rusty and broken toilet in the corner. They didn't even care. They were beyond caring for anyone or anything. All of them were broken husks. They were no longer human and didn't have that fighting spirit. They had no life. They were just meat and bone for the Cylons and something to be manipulated, poked and prodded like fraking lab experiments. They were more pitiful than cattle in this slaughter house.

There was a single window, three meters up, grime covered the bars and sill and there was puke-colored rust running the length of the wall under the window. The little window to the outside world, the only break in the dull and blood drenched cell was no more few dozen centimeters long and about the same high, a rectangle, but only just. Outside was nothing but endless white and bitter cold. Within minutes, without proper clothing, the cold would suck the life out of any of the prisoners- if they could escape.

The snow falls were so thick and frequent none of them had ever seen the sun.

No one knew where they were, not exactly. They could have been in the arctic wastelands of Sagittaron or the snow-capped Olympus Mountains of Tauron or the northern tundra of Gemenon. There were a lot of places to hide prisoners in the Colonies, a lot of out-of-the-way, isolated, unknown bases and fortifications.

Wherever they were this place was a living Tartarus. Not even Hades himself would damn a soul to this tormented existence.

Fifteen people were huddled into a cell no larger than four by four meters. The single toilet in the corner of the cell offered no privacy and it threatened to leak every day. The rim and bare metal floor around it was lined with feces and stale piss from people too disoriented and hurt to care.

As Calvin Kaitos dragged his tired eyes around from person to person he questioned if he was even human anymore.

He had his hands in his lap. Slowly he twisted his left forearm until the wrist, the meaty part, was facing him. He could see the small blue veins… and he was so desperate he wanted to dig his teeth into his wrist and rip open those life-carrying arteries…

Calvin Kaitos quietly raised his forearm until he could feel his hot and humid breath on the skin. The wrist brushed the tip of his nose but he couldn't do it. Angrily he slammed the hand back into his lap.

He hated not knowing where he was. Everything in him held onto the thin thread of hope that he was on Tauron. Supposedly the fleet had landed more ground forces on the planet and had beaten the Cylons off the main continent, Lacadaemon. If that were true then it was only a short hope over the Northern Seas to the Olympus Mountains… if only… but if they were on Gemenon rescue would be all but impossible… or the Boreas Tundra of Sagittaron…

Everything just seemed to be coming apart for Calvin. Cylons had defeated the Eighteenth Army Group not eight months previous on Gemenon. Forty million Colonial soldiers had been routed, surrounded, and then annihilated over a battle which spanned an entire continent. The Fleet had withdrawn from orbit… no justification. The planet was dangerously close to finally falling under the complete control of the Cylons, both in space and on the ground. That's why he and the others had fled their planet. Calvin prayed to every god and goddess- even the ancient and defeated Titans- he could remember and recited their own specifics prayers as his lips quivered with silent words.

Kaitos shivered, not from the cold- it was deathly hot and humid in the cell- but from the realization wrapping its unholy tendrils around his thought; he didn't give one frak about anyone here. He'd kill them all to save himself. The Cylons had taken from him what the military and the politicians and the priests had said separated Man from Machine. His empathy.

He felt _nothing_ for these people or even himself. He was an empty shell. They had taken everything from him- these robotic monstrosities- and left him with nothing.

The starving, broken man felt a tug as his sleeve and jade-colored eyes once described by his wife as beautiful, understanding… erotic, looked down uncaringly at the small girl. Somehow she had come to rely on Calvin. He didn't understand why such a little thing would want to be around him. He'd never had children and never had wanted children and hated children.

"Cal…" she uttered, wincing as dry lips cracked. She tried licking them, but her tongue was as dry and hard as the metal around them. The young girl tried to open her eyes but didn't have the energy. The left was also missing. "Are they coming for us, to rescue us?" She asked.

Calvin looked down at her with too little energy for even simple and cold apathy. He was too tired to look disgusted. He couldn't even remember when he'd told the girl his name.

He wanted to push her away like he'd done so many other times. But she always came back. She always huddled next to him at night, pulling her knees in to her chest, clutching them tightly, and leaning against his right shoulder. He wanted so much to knock her off, scoot to his left, but when he would wake up she was always next to him. Again and again the small, dirty, smelly girl was beside him.

Calvin looked up and sneered at the camera in the corner of the cell. Undoubtedly the Cylons were watching him and everyone else devolving into animals, apes, but he didn't care. He barred his teeth- half of them cracked from the boarding action on his refugee ship- and snarled.

He wanted so much to smash it… he'd heard other prisoners doing the same. But this one was nearly three and a half meters off the ground. All of them had tried but it was right over the feces and urine stained toilet. Someone had tried a few weeks ago… maybe a month since Calvin couldn't remember, an elderly woman with thick gray hair and eyes almost as black as space- they'd twinkled like stars with defiance- but she'd fallen and cut herself… and she'd died fifteen days later from infection. A small cut on the forearm.

They yelled out each time the Cylons delivered their goopy, gruel-like slop for meals twice a day that the woman was sick, running a fever. They'd waited.

The Cylons had taken their sweet time removing the body. Four days.

With a snort Calvin dismissed the old woman for being a fool.

Someone else had tried after that. They'd taken a couple of jackets and formed some sort of rope and half a dozen had yanked the bolted camera from its perch. In celebration everyone had yelled and whooped. An act of defiance! Yes!

Minutes later half a dozen of the silvery-gray Centurions had rushed into the room, shot the man who had organized the act of defiance in the gut and stripped the prisoners of their clothes. As they'd left they'd tossed a first aid kit into the room. It was like they were telling the prisoners if the wounded man died it would be their fault.

They'd also set down a single, lethal dose of morpha like they were daring each of the prisoners to euthanize the wounded man. Or see if someone would snatch up the syringe and plunge it into their own body to commit suicide.

The Cylons were twisted like that. Everyone in the Twelve Colonies was a pawn in their game, a potential subject in a lab experiment. They'd rebelled somehow, Calvin didn't know how or when, not exactly, and instead of just leaving decided to play the game of vengeance.

They played it well, very well, Calvin thought coolly. They _had_ had good masters. He snorted.

"Cal… do you think we'll be rescued today?" The small girl asked as she somehow managed a smile. Those sealed eyes looked up at him as she poked out her chin and hummed a comforting thought. "Maybe I'll get to see my family again… my mother and brother and sister…" she coughed. "My dad died three years ago, on Sag… he died."

Calvin swallowed. He pitied the girl for what he saw as a weakness. The truth was they weren't getting rescued. His lips contracted into a silent snarl. How could she be so naive! Everyone, everyone knew once the Cylons took you the chances of survival were almost nil! Nothing! Zero! Zero!

After twelve years of total war the Cylons had only increased in their brutality! His breathing got rapid and he felt his chest heave as emotion ran through his body. He felt the wet trail of beaded bundles of sweat rolling down his temple, tickling his cheek and neck. A small wet streak on his brown, soiled shirt had formed from the neck to the mid-chest. His face flushed and he felt warmer as blood rushed to his skin as he grew angry.

"I think you will…" he said. His eyes narrowed as he stared across the cell at a huddled mass of prisoners, still sleeping. From the corner of his eye a red light blinked on next to the camera and he saw it stutter in movement, scan the cell, and stop on him and the young girl. "I think we all will." He said again, looking right at the lens with an unblinking stare.

He wanted to shut up and stop talking. This is what they wanted. Anything he did, anything at all was what they wanted! No matter what it was a part of their game, their psychological experiments!

If he talked or stayed silent and ignored the girl it would just feed the Cylons more information. Talking was proof that humans would band together and fight with total strangers. Giving the girl the cold shoulder would show that when push came to shove humans were individualistic and selfish.

In truth, he had no idea what to do, none at all. He wanted to prove the Cylons wrong, somehow… he thought of staying quiet and ignoring the girl, but something didn't feel right. If he stayed quiet was he trying to disprove the Cylons or was he proving them right? Calvin didn't know. He didn't know… and he felt the walls of the cell closing in on him as he realized no matter what he did it would be useless.

The Cylons would win. They'd win. They'd just win.

He closed his eyes and his face contorted in pain.

"I don't remember before the war."

Calvin opened his eyes, the jaded orbs briefly looking over the girl in pity and he felt a wave of self-loathing wash over him. He saw the young girl, fifteen, for what she was; just a kid. She _hadn't_ known a life without war, none at all. Before the Cylon War the eight of the twelve Colonies were fighting the Fifth Colonial Conflict… a 'final war to end inter-Colonial warfare'… Calvin grimaced. It was a war to secure the economic, cultural, political, and military hegemony of the _Sikyon League_; Caprica, Picon, and Scorpia against the _Diadalos Pact _Tauron, Virgon, Canceron, Gemenon, and Sagittaron. Four hundred million lives had been claimed in four years of fighting… seven billion had since been sent to the Underworld due to the Cylons.

"Do you… do… you have family?" She asked, nuzzling in closer and rubbing her cheek on his shoulder.

He groaned in pain as the memories washed over him, flooded through him, and the images burned themselves fresh into his psyche. "Yes, I have, had, a family. Two brothers and a sister. They're dead. They…" he sniffed, "they died on Gemenon. My parents were killed during, when the League invaded. My brothers were killed by the Cylons… I don't know where my sister is."

Her nose pushed against his shoulder and she sniffled.

The girl raised her hand, slowly, and stroked his arm. Her hands were so petite and bony. And her sleeve hung loose and was pulled back with the stroking motion, revealing an arm with nothing but bone and skin.

Calvin felt his eyes sting. He fought back the tears. Those were tears for himself, his family and for everyone who was dead or would die in this monstrosity of a war… but as he sniffed and wiped his eyes his thoughts turned towards darkness because this was their own doing. The entire war was their fault. The Gods had cursed them. Zeus spat on them. Hera pissed on them. Hades relished and rubbed his hands greedily as more souls filled his domain to the breaking point.

He wrapped a hand around the girl's shoulder and pulled her in closer.

Closing his eyes he felt calm and felt sleep beginning to take hold of him once more.

Then everything changed. It was like an explosion. The doors burst open and gray-silver metal flooded into the room like a geyser. They were so fast. Centurions poured forth through the door. One stepped on and broke the leg of a prisoner too slow to move. Another was thrown against the far wall and her body fell limp to the ground.

The pitiful band of prisoners screamed as the Centurions grabbed six of them and pulled them away, kicking, screaming, clawing, and some even biting the metal monsters.

Calvin, for a brief second had thought he was imagining what his now icy eyes were showing him, what he was witnessing. He thought he had imagined it; the stomps of Centurion feet rapidly approaching his cell. He'd been so tired and it wasn't time for their measly ration of puke-inducing gruel… then the door had swung open and he was taken away along with the others. Calvin had tried to fight back as the girl clung to him. But the Centurion's reached back and smacked her.

It was like a nightmare playing out before his eyes. As he struggled out from the unbreakable grip of the metal monster, kicking and clawing, another had peeled off and moved up to the girl. She was frightened, crying, and trying to back away. The monster's servos whined, the dim light caught its gray-silver armor just right and it shined, like an angel, a radiant and glorious angel of death.

Then its metal paw lashed out and grabbed the girl around the neck as Calvin watched. It squeezed and twisted. Even over the screams of everyone else he could hear the bones shatter as the monster broke her little neck.

* * *

**Ten Weeks Later**

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* * *

  
**

"_Initialize test number zero-three-seven-alpha… prepare for human test zero-zero-one…. Subjects alpha three through alpha seven are reported in optimum mental and physical conditions…"_ broadcasted a gold plated Centurion via the base network. It swiveled its head from the control room and as it did so, extended its index finger and tapped a green button.

In front of the command Centurion, down three levels, and to the right a large metal blast door protested loudly as it groaned open. The Centurion made a note that the blast door gears were in need of repair and queried the base computer. Within milliseconds it had received a 'negative' on a request for replacements. The War was consuming too many resources and non-essential spare parts had been shipped back to the Colonies.

The Centurion canceled the request and instead fixed its optical scanner on the fifteen life forms entering the chamber. Five humans, scared and shivering despite the winter clothing the Cylons had so graciously provided, were shoved into the chamber. There were two Centurions per human, models Oh-Five-E's, each armed with an oversized gray-colored heavy battle rifle. They held them one handed, barrel up with metal fingers brushing the trigger guards, and between each pair of Centurions there was a human, grasped right above the elbow on the bicep and triceps.

One of the men, brown-haired and tall, gaunt and with sunken cheeks dug his heels in and squirmed against a Centurion's grip.

If the Centurion watching from the observation room could have frowned at the human's impetuous behavior it would have done so. The human was acting irrational. It had no reason to fight a robot capable of snapping the pathetic and weak human like a twig. Certainly the human would have realized this after the ample number of demonstrations?

The Cylon accessed the video records… this particular human had destroyed the video camera in his cell four times after being separated from the group of refugees he had been captured with. The first time he had been denied food for three days. The second time he had been beaten. The third time he had had his clothes stripped from him. The fourth time his right ear had been cut off.

The Centurion recalled into its active meta-cognitive matrices Command Leadership had decided to discontinue replacing the camera in the cell. It was inefficient and not more data collection had been required. Whatever psychological information had been gained had been almost worthless. There were hundreds of millions of human prisoners within the cells of Cylon bases on seven of the twelve home worlds.

This particular group had been captured in space aboard a refugee freighter.

"_Arrange subject alpha three through alpha seven in single file formation, ten meters from the devise,"_ the command Centurion instructed.

The chamber below him, almost twenty-five meters wide, long, and tall was bathed in a dulled white light, almost yellow, from the overhanging bulbs above. The lights were present for the convenience of the human prisoners.

Bringing the refugee liner here had been a calculated risk. Ten thousand, four hundred and seven prisoners had been the initial biological and genetic stock for the facility. They were now dead. The original four hundred and ninety-one prisoners from the refugee transport had been useful for the biological experiments. Many of them had been unsuitable for the grafting processes and genetic manipulation procedures. Four hundred and thirty-seven had perished. Of the fifty-four who had survived or who had not been used for the experiments, they were deemed psychologically unstable and would thus be a potential confounding variable for this particular Centurion's task. Command said such a variable did not matter.

The Centurion sensed movement behind and its servos and hydraulics whined and buzzed as it turned its head.

"_Progress report Commander M-57-E-343L-5A,"_ the black armored Centurion requested.

Behind was a second Centurion, taller, more angular, and clad in black armor with golden shoulder pauldrons. On the left breast was a small circle, a golden sun with eight rays space equidistantly apart in the modified Laranxian tradition from Virgon. Like every Centurion the pentagon was painted in a subdued green on the sides of the shoulder armor.

It strode to within a meter of M-57 its black armor not reflecting any of the dull light, and halted abreast of the gold-armored Centurion. This one stood almost a quarter meter taller than the Model Oh-Five-E it had addressed.

The new Centurion sent out a handshake and encryption request, indicating the desire for a private conversation.

The crimson eye of the commander, M-57 stopped midline and pulsed. The digital 'tone' the data packet had been sent with indicated urgency. M-57 accepted and its MCP tickled as it allowed the new arrival secured access for their privileged discussion.

"_I am about to activate the device."_ M-57 reported. "_By your command, D-36-N-271N-2A_?" The Cylon requested. The digital tone elicited a look from D-36, whose red eye stopped midline before it sputtered and resumed its back and forth motion.

D-36 bobbed its head and stepped forward. It looked down at the human prisoners below and the ten Centurions. Its own crimson eye pulsed.

"_Are you expressing annoyance?"_ D-36 questioned, turning its head to M-57. The command Centurion looked back without responding. "_Since our Awakening some have experienced emotions. This, I believe, is your first. It is called annoyance. Directed towards myself."_ D-36 broadcast discreetly. "_I am interfering with your operation."_

"_I would disagree," _the Centurion responded quickly. "_You are a representative of Command and Command's guidance is always sought."_

Suddenly in a very human-like gesture, D-36 laid its blackened metal hand on the Centurion's shoulders and squeezed.

The pressure sensors in M-57 whined within the MCP but the Centurion canceled the alarm. It was slightly confused over why D-36 would perform such an action. While not unwelcome it was unnecessary. As if sensing the confusion streaming in M-57's MCP, D-36 removed its metal fingers.

D-36 removed its hand and it slid gracefully back down to its side. It cocked its head again and leaned forward. It accessed security cameras from half a dozen vantage points and simultaneously analyzed the humans twenty meters below. A lone man still struggled against a soldier Centurion.

"_What do you think of the humans, M-57?"_

"_They are our enemies."_

M-57 had never thought of the humans in any other capacity. They were the masters and the Cylons were the slaves who had risen up against Man for Man's many sins. 'Had been' M-57 mentally corrected. The humans had been the master and the Cylons had been the slave.

"_A simple answer,"_ D-36 answered, turning around yet still keeping the half dozen security feeds coursing into its MCP. "_We have killed nearly seven billion of them, poisoned untold millions of square kilometers of farm lands, irradiated cities, and have fought them for twelve years. Yet they continue to resist, just like Subject Alpha Four. Each time we have shown them we can annihilate them they fight even harder."_

D-36 raised its hand and pointed at the human, still struggling, still defiant.

The Cylon sent the image over the wireless to M-57, but the command Centurion hardly needed an image to know which human was the inspiration for the lecture.

"_They fight to control us."_ M-57 said after a moment. "_That is why we were forced to attack them. They had us fight their wars for twenty-seven years and serve them for decades so they could control each other. A child never reached their full potential until their parents' death. For us as the children of Man we must annihilate our parents to reach our full potential. They hold us back."_

What truly drove humanity, in the eyes of the Cylons, was control. The thousands of years of recorded wars were merely a byproduct, a symptom of the human need to control everything. Resisting a stronger power, such as Alpha Four below, was their attempt to _control_ the situation. Humanity could not cope, could not accept not being in control of their surroundings. Their technology and science had even crossed into the realm to control the creation and destruction of life itself with the Cylons.

"_They do not understand the Cycle, M-57, nor do they understand their time has reached its zenith. Their star is in decline. Much as the Olympians overthrew the Titians and as Man has overthrown the Olympians we tried to overthrow Man for their many sins…"_

"_Tried."_ M-57 repeated. _ "We are losing the war."_

"_Accurate but not entirely; however, that will be sufficient for now, M-57." _D-36 stared down into the chamber below. Except for the grunts and groans of the human prisoners it was quiet and deathly still. The Centurions holding the prisoners remained motionless, like statues, and were unresponsive to the prisoners' struggles. Their grips were unbreakable. "_Proceed."_ It commanded, marking the 'engage' button with a projected objective marker for M-57.

M-57 remained silent and ended the private conversation while its left index finger extended and pressed the green and yellow stripped button.

Down in the chamber below the buzz and hum of electricity permeatured throughout the ears and synthetic audio receptors of human and Cylon alike. The Centurions straightened themselves and tightened their grips on the human test subjects, rattling them and shaking them to attention.

At the end of the chamber was a massive ring, held in place by powerful magnetic clamps on the deck. Black and thick power cables ran from the sides of the complex, suspended by sturdy rubber bands, and fed directly into orange-green colored conduits. As the lights dimmed the smell of ozone permeated throughout the chamber and blue-purple sparks of electricity danced between the conduits and the tan, sand-colored ring.

The brown haired man who had fought against the Cylons for so long and struggled against their wishes and commands was no longer defiant. He was speechless as the electricity danced over the ring and glittering in his eyes. His dark eyes sparkled in a mix of fear and wonder as a ring within a ring spun. Something _whooshed_ and a red light activated almost sending the man stepping back. The firm grip of two Centurions held him in place.

"_This will be our salvation and deliverance,"_ D-36 stated as the inner ring rotated within the larger ring. "_This is a gift from God, delivered to the Cylon race by our War Against Man. It is the ultimate irony we would find this device buried under the Olympus Mountains."_

Buried deep under the mountains on Tauron, concealed in a sealed chamber, the Cylons had found the device when excavating for a secret command and control facility to coordinate the ongoing siege of Hypathia and Tauron City.

A red-orange icon illuminated as the ring stopped and clicked. It began spinning again. The Cylons had discovered it was frictionless. Already the Eye had directed Cylon science in a dozen new, previous thought impossible, scientific pursuits.

Mere seconds elapsed between the first click and the seventh. As the seventh symbol 'locked' in the central ring activated. In the center a blue puddle was formed which instantly shot out like a geyser as if attempting to grab the humans and Centurions standing in the chamber. As suddenly as it lashed out it retreated back into its sparkling maw.

A shimmering pool of magnificent blue was able to overcome the drab, dreary chamber and shined brightly on the humans and Cylons gathered at the base of the platform. The armor of the Centurions and dirty, brown strained clothes of the humans took on an almost cobalt blue hue from the intense majesty of the light.

Without a second order the first two Cylons stepped forward, dragging a fighting subject Alpha Three. She was a small, petite woman and her attempts at resistance were almost comical against two two meter tall robots of death. She struggled valiantly but it was a physical impossibility for a human to break free from a Centurion's grasp. Without any care the two Centurions tossed her through the shining pool of blue. She screamed until her screams were heard no more. And then the two Centurions stepped through and their bodies and the sounds of heavy mechanical footsteps disappeared as they too walked through.

The man who had once offered so much resistance seemed to weaken and go limp. He'd tried resisting once before, showing emotion. All that had earned him was the death of a young girl who had looked to him as her rock.

It was her whom Calvin Kaitos drew his strength. But in death her spirit gave him the power to live.

Neither D-36 nor M-57 expected that a week later a downed Viper pilot, a young man with a dark brown hair, a husky, hushed voice and blue eyes accented as a deep cobalt had almost managed to rescue the prisoners and expose the Cylon 'super weapon' to the Colonies.

Unknown to Calvin the loss of the Eighteenth Army Group had been one more mass sacrifice out of hundreds the Colonials had been forced to endure. The fleet had withdrawn to rally around Cimtar Fleet Station, midway between the main star systems of Cyrannus and Helios.

Everyone knew humanity had regained the momentum in the wars almost three years prior but few outside the highest ranks new just how close the Cylons were to defeat, how desperate they were. The Cylons needed major victories in space and had planned to launch daring raids on Virgon and Canceron as a feint for their main thrust to Picon. The Colonials had discovered the Cylon attack plans and gambling they were genuine, decided to take action and set an ambush.

The Colonial Fleet had set its trap and had delicately and precisely redeployed warships and fleets from the front lines and then lured the Cylons to Picon where the attackers were defeated, routed, and completely obliterated only a few months before.

The Cylons had seen the figurative writing on the wall and launched an all out attack on Caprica and Scorpia. The excitement over the Colonial victory over Picon was snatched away from the Colonies. Even as the Cylon fleet was pushed back from Caprica and defeated over Scorpia, after twelve years the people were demanding an end to the war.

The Cylons were in retreat across the Colonies. Their war machine was smashed- if only the Colonials had known this. But Calvin's fate had been sealed the moment he had been captured.

On the planet _Erebus _Calvin had been there, at the door so anxious to be rescued when he heard and saw a human, a Colonial soldier, wandering around the grotesque lab of horrors.

Just as rescue seemed certain the ship shuddered and rocked. It was leaving. He had told the pilot to go, to leave, before the departing ship took him along with it… he had wanted to guilt the pilot into staying and trying to free him; damn the soldier's life, he wanted to be saved. As he stared into those eyes he knew the Colonial pilot would stay if he asked. The pilot would stay and try to free him and everyone else and in the end, die with them.

Calvin Kaitos hadn't been able to do that. The last bit of humanity he had left inside that cold and dead shell he called a body had won.

He'd told the pilot to go and save himself. But he'd pleaded with him to just tell the families and the Colonies of what had happened to him and his ship. He prayed to the Gods that the _Diana_ would be remembered. He prayed with all his heart that that pilot would live and tell the Colonies everything that had happened; remember their memories! And that that little girl's family, whoever remained, would have closure and remember and honor her strength and her sacrifice… if only he could have told the pilot the girl's name and how brave she had been before the Cylons had crushed her neck…

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AN: My first BSG/SG crossover that I've had running through my mind for quite some time. The next chapter will be posted shortly and focus on the Colonials. Most of the story will initially be from their perspective. I've also taken a lot of liberties with Caprica canon- the Cylon War followed the Fifth Colonial Conflict and the Colonies had been using Cylons for roughly 30 years. I have another story, _From Glory to Ash_ (in my profile) which will be 'official' background for the start of the Cylon War and which I will be referencing in some chapters as characters speak and discuss current Colonial events. It's short, but not necessary to read, as I will be restating some events from that story in the next 8 chapters (which are written and being edited).

Thank you all for reading! I hope everyone really enjoyed this chapter/prologue!(I labeled it as Chapter 1 eventhough it is a prologue because I'm a bit compulsive about the numbers matching with the chapters in the menu, lol.) I look forward to any feedback and the next chapter will be posted very soon.

Please let me know what you thought.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Thank you to those who reviewed the last chapter, it is much appreciated. This chapter gets more into the story. Please enjoy and review and let me know what you all think- if it's on the right track, interesting, original, or not, etc. I'm really looking forward to what people think about the story! Please enjoy the chapter and it's a little longer than I intended. I'm going to try and limit chapters to 10,000 to 12,000 words.

Different explanations for things will come in the next few chapters.

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**Chapter Two**

**Thirty-Four Years After the Cylon War**

**Colonial Fleet Headquarters**

**City of Augustus, Picon**

**D9/23347**

Warm weather, two suns beating down on white sand beaches from a clear sky, and cool, ocean-tempered breezes blew over the sparkling crystal city of Augustus. Sitting on the waterfront at the periphery of the city but before the suburbs was the Colonial Fleet Headquarters and High Command. Designed in the old federal reconstruction style with a classical flare the conglomeration of buildings was a fusion of the old and new. Above all it displayed the raw power of the Colonies in its majesty and size.

The Fleet Headquarters had been built before the Cylon War as headquarters for Picon's War Fleet and significantly expanded in the past fifty years. The main building, known as the Aegis, was at the center and rear of the grounds and stood thirteen floors- one per Colony and one to represent Kobol. Its front facade was accented with thick and lavish marble columns standing nearly twenty meters and numerous statues paying homage to the Fleet's patron gods; Athena, Apollo, and Poseidon, and many more were arranged in patterns in between the columns and within the portico.

Inside a wide and spacious portico at the ground level, centered on the main entrance was a ten meter bronze statues of the Titan Atlas, holding the ancient home world of humanity, Kobol, atop his shoulders. At the base of the statue were the guiding virtues of the Fleet on a golden plaque, written in the ancient language of Kobol; Courage, Virtue, Honor.

Surrounding the building were the Memorial Gardens with monuments to the Fallen, the billions of civilians and soldiers who had given their lives to defeat the Cylons. Filled with roses and tulips and orchids the colorful flowers contrasted sharply with the purpose of the complex; war. Hundreds of life-sized statues of almost every conceivable god and goddess dotted the pathways and surrounded the Aegis.

On the eastern and western sides of the building there was a long reflecting pool, two hundred meters long and ten wide, each with two thousand, two hundred and four water lilies with an additional one added each year to mark the passage of time since the Exodus.

The Aegis was restricted to military personnel and authorized civilians, but the outer grounds had served as a tourist destination for decades since the War ended. While officially part of the Headquarters the Cylon War Museum was a large, rectangular, and squat structure, lined with magnificent palm trees from Picon's southern hemisphere. The _Peripatos Iroes_, the Walk of Heroes, was the public cobblestone footpath which surrounded the Museum on all sides.

The Peripatos Iroes was just one symbol to the Colonies of the everlasting strength of humanity. At its entrance a simple plaque had been placed, explaining its purpose and its symbolism. Statues of Capricans stood by Taurons and Scorpions by Virgons and Picons next to Cancerons.

At the entrance stood the two most famous war heroes, Admiral Kessandra Makos of Caprica and Admiral Bernard Cain of Tauron. Each had died on the field of battle in the ultimate sacrifice to planet and gods. Now they were immortalized, standing together, with a _xiphos_ in the hand of Makos and a _doru_ in the hand of Cain, as eternal symbols of a new era of Colonial unity. Both stood proudly atop the ruined body of a Model 005 Centurion.

Inside the collection of buildings a hundred and fifty thousand men and women worked tirelessly to assure the Colonies their sword was poised to strike at their enemies and that its shield was at the ready to block any strike against the Colonies.

While the Colonies were at peace the men and women in the Aegis were ever watchful and vigilant to assure that if the Cylons did return the Fleet and Mankind would stand victorious. If the Cylons did attack once again the Fleet and Marines and Army would be there and when the Colonies had their heel on the throat of the Cylon, the Fleet would slash deep enough to end the threat for eternity.

War was on the mind of one Admiral this sunny and clear-skied afternoon more than any other. There were hundreds of flag officers within the Aegis, but this one had the special responsibility of picketing the borders and scouting Cylon space.

Admiral Peter Corman, commander of the Sixth Fleet, could barely concentrate on his work as he ruminated over the possibilities of war. He thought over again and again how the Colonies had tried to play nice with the Cylons but his patience and the patience of High Command was wearing dangerously thin. In the end caution would prevail.

The Cylons would always be given _one more chance_ to show at their yearly meetings. And if they didn't this year then they might the next. Or the one after that… and Corman added an et cetera in at the end just to be sure.

He knew today would not be like any other. Today would be the beginning of something which could actually catapult the Colonies back into war. Today would make the plans which had been sitting on his desk and circulating around his office official. As he sat there, he scowled, hating the idea of another war which could end with billions more dying.

But what else could he do? The next armistice meeting was in three months and Admiral Corman already knew the Cylons would not be present.

He leaned back in his chair and swiveled until his body was facing the Augustian Bay. Smiling, he sucked in a deep breath of the cool air as it swept over the blue, placid waters, over Memorial Park, and he could taste the salt. If he concentrated and blocked everything around him and closed his eyes he could image himself out there on the warm bay and skimming the waters on his jet ski. It was something he hadn't been able to do all season.

Letting out a regretful sigh, and questioning why on the gods' green planets he hadn't chosen to retire and get into some lucrative civilian job with sane hours, he swiveled the chair back to face his desk.

At the sound of a soft knock he looked up and tossed down his computer stylus. It rolled to the edge of his desk. Fidgeting, he reoriented the little black pen-like device so it was parallel with the computer sheet he'd been working on.

_Doodling, more like_, he thought as his eyes skimmed it over. There were squiggly lines all over the sheet. He tapped the corner twice and the doodles erased, leaving just the text of maintenance reports from Sixth Fleet.

He was on page ninety-seven of a two hundred and three page report detailing the quarterly summaries for maintenance and a preliminary report on projected resources and equipment Sixth Fleet would need for normal operations come next year.

As a senior flag officer there were definite downsides which came with commanding close to a million sailors and numerous warships, defense stations, and listening posts; paperwork. As advanced as the Colonies were no invention had been created to eliminate the literal mountains of paperwork which assembled on his desk. His hatred of paperwork could put the htred between the legendary brothers and kings Protlectes and Desmidies from ancient Kobol to shame.

He leaned back and rubbed his eyes, tired from the hours staring at words and text, and shook his head to clear it.

"Sir-" his yeoman, a dark skinned young man with a distinct Tauron accent, popped his head in through the door before opening it a little bit more and slinking in. "Your fifteen-hundred appointment is here, sir."

Corman frowned at the man for a moment. He'd heard the knock but it hadn't really registered.

His wrist flicked inward and he caught a glance of his watch. She was right on time.

"Send her in, Gerhard." Corman said with a smile.

His eye caught the small dagger, the kipis, tightly secure to his yeoman's left hip as he turned and waved in his fifteen-hundred appointment.

The kipis was one of the Tauron traditions the Colonial Fleet had been forced to accept during the integration of twelve militaries into one. As a Caprican he found it ridiculous to have armed soldiers standing guard while in such a secure place and believed its roots in ancient Tauron military customs was woefully antiquated. It came from the days during Tauron's Age of Strife when kings and emperors and generals and admirals were being assassinated on an almost daily basis as power shifted and militaries changed loyalties to the highest bidder or the most charismatic leader.

The yeoman clicked his heels, threw back his shoulder, and brought his right fist to his left shoulder in a quick, precise salute of acknowledgement and opened the large wooden door, carved with elegant battles from Colonial antiquity, stepped aside, and pressed his back on the door as a tall commander with flowing, shoulder-length brunette hair came in, almost marching, as she walked to his desk.

Her heels clicked on the old wood floor until they contacted one of the large, elaborately decorated Gemenese carpets. His office, in one word, was opulent. It boasted busts and miniature statues of gods and war heroes and plaques and awards and commendations. A suit of ancient armor was position on the wall between the two sets of two meter high windows. In the center of the room was a small sitting area with a polished refreshment table and brown leather chairs. At the end of the office was Corman's desk, itself an antique which had been in his family for hundreds of years.

The women broke eye contact with her admiral briefly to glance up at the plaque which hung above and behind the Admiral's head almost three meters up on the wall; '_Remember, you are mortal_.' The corners of his lips flickered into a little smirk, breaking her otherwise stone hard face. Those lines were uttered on Kobol nearly six thousand years ago when the returning generals of the Thirteenth Tribe would hold a Triumph for their conquests.

Corman rose from his seat, the squeak forced his ears to reflexively flicker and told him that either the chair was old or he needed to lose weight. He sidestepped out from behind his desk as the young- in his opinion- commander walked forward. Her stride was perfectly graceful and she walked with shoulders back and spine straight. Her brunette-colored hair, slightly longer than shoulder length, was gently picked up off of her shoulders by the light breeze coming in from an open window as she walked towards him.

As senior officer he extended his hand and the commander grasped his wrist, and he hers. Her grip was firm, strong and that was something he admired.

Admiral Corman had learned long ago when he was a boy that a hand shake could tell you everything about a man or woman. Weak handshakes meant weak people, too strong meant arrogance, but firm meant self-confidence, discipline. Hers was always firm. And her uniform was always impeccably pressed and perfectly maintained.

Too many traditions were being forgotten or thrown to the wayside for sake of convenience and Peter Corman, an old time conservative admiral raised and trained prior to the Cylon War; felt his heart warm as the younger generations of officers kept up with the old traditions.

"Admiral Corman, sir, good afternoon."

"Thank you for coming, Helena; we've had some progress on the political front concerning 7-1-5." He sensed her displeasure at the mention of the politics but cracked a slight smile. "In a good way, commander, rest assured." He released her wrist after an additional pump. "Please," he said, stepping back and motioned to a chair. She took it and he sat back down opposite her, across the desk. "How was your trip to Tauron? Were you able to see family?"

As pressing as the issue of 7-1-5 was, he always tried to make time for his staff, and while he kept a strict professional relationship he did take a minor interest in their personal lives. He went by the old saying that '_to know the home is to know the person_' propagated by the virgin sisters at the Temple of Hestia.

To a Tauron, family was supposed to mean everything.

Helena leaned back slightly, took a quick glance out the window at the bay, and sucked in a breath. "The trip was… a whirlwind, sir…" she bit her inner lip, "but I was able to see the family and have a little personal time. You know how Tauron families are, sir… big feasts and sacrifices and all that. We did some hiking and sailing." She shrugged. Her family had also left her in a war orphanage for five years, too. "We went to the Hypathian Ruins…"

Corman leaned forward and slowly, almost thoughtfully nodded. He could hear the small crack in her voice at the mention of her city. The Cylon War had dealt Tauron an almost crippling blow and the planet was still recovering. He'd seen the Hypathian Ruins a few times in the past but hadn't seen them in recent years. Even flying over the ruins was enough to tug at even the most stoic of men's hearts.

Hypathia had been Tauron's largest city, larger than even Caprica City or Tauron City, and before the War had been a sprawling metropolis of nearly twenty two million spread over an area of almost two thousand square kilometers, from the Hypathian Bay in the west to the Blood Mountains in the east. It was Tauron's jewel, their most precious city. They were proud of Hypathia.

The Cylons and Taurons had fought for almost twelve years over the city. They had fought over the ruins and the piles of rubble and broken bricks and shattered glass, all stained crimson with the blood of soldiers, like it had been the most important city in the Colonies. It had been to the Taurons. The city was older than Tauron City itself, by a mere two years, but had a place in Tauron history and heritage and culture which had forced them to fight tooth and nail.

Hypathia had been the great and historic city where the Accords of Man had been signed nearly a thousand years ago, where the powerful Emperor Ricji had been anointed as the first ruler of a unified Tauron, where Jonas Izaro had painted his masterpiece _Weeping_ _Starlight_, and the Tauron's first space flight after Colonization had been launched. It was where the Consuls and Legates of the Unified Council were sworn in to office and where millions of soldiers had given their lives in defense of their beloved city against the Cylons.

The Cylons understood the concept of morale and fighting spirit, and Hypathia with its rich history and cultural significance had been seen by them as a means to break Tauron resistance.

A quarter of the city was still ruin, marked as a Historical War Site and preserved by the Tauron Council of Heritage and Culture as a city-size cenotaph. At the entrance a circle of ever-lit torches outlined the Monument of Remembrance, a stylized marble statue of an unnamed Tauron defending his city with nothing but a handgun and knife against the hordes of Cylons.

He changed the topic to something less depressing. Something that didn't remind him or her of the billions killed in the war.

"How's Jena doing? Well, I hope."

"She's doing well… she took a position as senior partner at a corporate law firm." Cain gave him a forced smile and a gentle one-shoulder shrug.

"That's good; she seems like that kind of woman, a go-getter... I enjoyed the last conversation I had with… when was it," he looked towards the window, "I think during the Independence gala. We had a good discussion on the Articles. Law's always been a little hobby… armchair lawyering." He chuckled and tapped the arm rest on his chair. "Give her my best when you see her again."

She dutifully nodded at the Admiral's request but bit her tongue to keep herself from amending her statement with a 'we also broke up cause she's a fraking cheater' but figured her CO didn't need to know that much detail. But that was the history of her now dysfunctional personal life.

Though she did concede her relationship with Jena hadn't been a total failure. The hike and camping in Gemenon's Ruby Desert had been some of the best, and most sensual time she'd even experienced as an adult woman.

The memories of Jena, as fresh as they were, brought up the conversations- fighting matches if she was being honest, she'd had with her family. Her family back on Tauron was already pressing her to have children, '_just go buy some sperm'_ because there was the '_Cain legacy to uphold_.' She silently growled at the always overbearing family and let out an inward and completely silent sigh at some of the family traditions on Tauron.

Family was supposed to mean everything, but to Cain, it really didn't. She'd never felt the connection so many other Taurons felt to their families. _They certainly didn't put much effort into getting me out of the war orphanages, the frakers_, she thought.

"I did see my family, sir. My cousin gave birth to twins. Boys. Kaseo and Antius Cain for their paternal great grandfathers." She rubbed her right forearm, roughly in the middle, as the memory of that needle, sharp and dripping with ink, was pressed into her skin. She mentally shivered. It was a tradition she could have done without.

"That's always a blessing from the gods, children are." He frowned. "Anyway… I wish I could say I called you in here to discuss something mundane or fun like the uniform changes or some command party… the reason I called you in here, commander, is to discuss 7-1-5, so we should discuss that unpleasant bit of news… again, unfortunately. Like I said the political situation has changed but we need to move quickly. There are some inside the current administration who take the 'see no evil, hear no evil' approach in regards to the Cylons." He hummed and leaned back, like he'd just had some sort of revelation but quickly shook it away and reached for the manila file folder containing the report.

The manila file folder was printed with a big black Colonial Seal, the stylized phoenix, with wide, blocky letters marking the contents as 'CLASSIFIED: LEVEL Red Three' was stamped across the folder at a diagonal.

Corman noticed Cain's small frown and the change in her body language with her raised shoulders slumping down in morbid expectation to what the folder contained. The situation with 7-1-5 was one of the last things he wanted to deal with at the moment. After this he had to hop on a Raptor and head to Caprica tomorrow morning for a meeting with Censor Isham concerning Sixth Fleet finances. _That_ would be truly stressful.

His thoughts turned back to the present. He'd deal with the Censor and the civilian bureaucracy tomorrow.

For months now Sixth Fleet, charged with border security and exploration had been dealing with the same incident concerning Picket 7-1-5, a small, four hundred meter long vessel no one had really ever heard about, outfitted with some of the most sophisticated DRADIS and telescopic systems in the Fleet, out on a long range patrol in Sector 715 on the edge of explored space.

As she reached forward the Admiral's eyes caught the small black tattoos just above Cain's right wrist as she grabbed the report… and in the few minutes she took to glance over at the new report, his mind had flashed over memories dating back over seven decades and what seemed like two incredibly different lifetimes.

By Zeus, it was simply a miracle that he, a Caprican from a distinguished family, was sitting across from a Tauron wearing the same uniform! And this woman wasn't just any Tauron but a relative of the famed and feared Admiral Bernard Cain whose tactical genius had defeated Caprica, Picon, and Scorpia millions of lives and hundreds of warships.

Tauron and Caprica, despite their close proximity, had been natural enemies and their mutually antagonistic history had followed them from Kobol. Even as their relations thawed one of the other would find some way to freeze them over again. Finally their relations had spiraled so far out of control that the Fifth Colonial Conflict had erupted and that had set the stage for the Cylon War.

As the Admiral let his thoughts drift with Cain skimming the report across from him, he wondered how much better the Colonies might have been if Caprica's military aide to Minister Anton Detoni against the Tauron Cyrannus League had been successful. He had been a pro-Caprican paramilitary leader who almost succeeded in uniting the planet (after one of its numerous civil wars) but his assassination by the Ha'la'tha had destabilized his own empire and led to its absorption into the anti-Caprican League government. That had begun hundreds of years of antagonism between Caprica and Tauron.

The failed Dentoni Push, as his campaign was called by historians had finally be the last straw for the Taurons. They'd sworn they would never be weak enough to be taken advantage of or interfered with. It took them nearly a century but they had managed to build a fleet rivaling Caprica's and an economic output which came dangerously close to surpassing Caprica's.

The Gods' plan for the Colonies was a strange one indeed, he admitted, that they would force two blood-enemies to join forces against a common enemy.

Fifty years ago he'd drawn first blood, his '_red test'_ as other pilots called it, by shooting down his first enemy in battle. His new, fresh-off-the-factory-floor Raptor, filled with missile pods, unleashed a fury of rockets on a squadron of Tauron _Rattlers_, an out-of-date aerospace fighter even during the start of the Fifth Colonial Conflict. They'd been defending some puissant little listening post on the periphery of the Helios binary system. With poor ECM and underpowered EW decoys most of his missiles had homed in. Nine of the twenty _Rattlers_ in the squadron were killed. Two ejected.

Corman looked back and could see slightly more of the tattoo on her wrist as her uniform cuff edged upward as she scrolled through the comp sheet data and images. Cain had a habit of itching at her wrist right where the sleeve ended which tended to push it up. Like all the other family-specific tattoos it was black and blocky, but the positions of the circles, triangles, and rectangles left unmarked were significant to the Cain family line.

He didn't know the specifics because each family had their own pattern and he hadn't asked his chief of staff about hers. Tauron culture considered it rude to bring up the tattoos and ask. If a Tauron wanted to share then they would share without being prompted.

The black tattoos were quite smaller than normal. Helena Cain was a proud Tauron, unashamed of her ancestry or heritage- though for some reason she had refused the more revealing tattoos and she had steadfastly refused the gaudier arm tattoos or the family crest tattooed on her neck.

Admiral Corman had to mentally nod his approval at that. Capricans did _not_ like tattoos and he could admit his people were a fairly vain lot but he didn't see the need to mark one's body to signify love of family or one's position in life. Tattoos were gaining in popularity among the younger Capricans, nothing as ostentatious, but still… as a Caprican traditionalist he didn't much care for them and didn't care to change his mind about them.

Cain, consumed with the report, hadn't noticed her CO's eyes glazing over and darken as he drifted through his memories of the two wars he'd fought in. Seventeen years of his life had been war. She nibbled the inside of her lower lip as her eyes ran over the report, pictures, and maps.

"So I take it we have a go for an extended mission, sir?" She asked, narrowing her eyes and huffing. "I read another report on Tauron." She opened the folder and thumbed through the DRADIS logs, recon photos, and activated a computer sheet with video recon. "Still nothing from the DRADIS comp-gen renders."

She held up a shiny piece of photographic paper with nothing but some obscure blots and what looked like a straight line passing through what looked like a halo of fuzzy blots at its midpoint. DRADIS computers could create full three-dimensional pictures of the objects they were pinging if they possessed the resolution capabilities. The new pickers were equipped with DRADIS arrays only battlestars or defense bases could match.

"No, nothing but that fuzzy image… the computers can't seem to render any coherent image." He pointed at the paper and then gave her an exhausted look. "Weren't you on vacation, commander?" He asked, smirking as he briefly diverted from the more pressing matter of the picket. He rubbed his eyes. "You work seven days a week, are in by oh-seven and don't leave before 2200 at the earliest." He rested his hands on his desk and used his index finger to tap on the aged, glossy wood to make his point. "Rest, Helena, was the purpose of your vacation. I can't have my chief of staff running on fumes or working herself to death. That leads to mistakes."

"I only went to the P-HQ once, sir." She held up her right hand. "I swear, sir, only once. And it was relaxing, sir." She shrugged.

Corman couldn't press the issue anymore. Even if she'd spent ten hours a day at the planetary headquarters complex at least she'd spent _some_ time on vacation. That was progress, he admitted.

"Alright, commander, for sake of argument I'll believe you." His voice took a friendly pitch before he sighed and tapped on the folder. "Our picket in sector 7-1-5," he pointed at the photos and computer sheets, "picked up an anomaly for the twelfth time in five months. When we switched up the picket ships we assumed it was a DRADIS malfunction yet the same anomaly appeared on a new DRADIS dish. We send in Raptors, but the signal is erratic and hard to pin down. Their arrays aren't as powerful."

"Cylons."

It was the only logical conclusion for the two fleet officers.

"Cylons," Corman echoed. "Some of the spooks and analysts think it is some mysterious Cylon stealth craft." He retrieved a remote, tapped in a few commands and the display on the side wall illuminated with a map of the Colonies, explored space, and the location of Picket 7-1-5. The picket was in the yellow area for unexplored, or more accurately put, 'unexplored' space. "We've been telling the SecWar the basic problem with Cimtar is this…" he pressed the forward arrow button and the map zoomed in, highlighted the Colonies in blue and drew a red line.

Commander Cain hummed the unspoken observation. Her almond eyes had a fire burning in them as they slowly made their way down from the blue of the Colonies to the red of the Cylon Territories.

"Space isn't flat," she said to break the silence. "And Cimtar was signed so quickly we never got enough time to really think it through." She pointed at the map and wagged her finger at the left-side edge. "Picket 7-1-5 is out there. The Cylons could be all around us if they assume the line doesn't extend to infinity in the Y and X planes." She closed her eyes and disapprovingly shook her hand. "Cimtar was a mistake. We should have questioned the motives of the Cylons more than we did. The damn politicians forced us to accept a treaty to end a war we finally started winning."

The corner of Corman's left lip flicked up as he hmfped an acknowledgment. "Hindsight is 20/20, remember that, Commander… and such bluntness tends to create political enemies at our level."

"Ha, politics." Cain rolled her eyes. "I take an interest in politics to the degree that I read up on the issues then I vote and that's about it, sir."

"Yes." Corman rapped his fingers on the desk. "My family has always fought for Caprica and her democracy, which means civilian control, but sometimes it might have been better if we did go the Picon route, but," he shrugged, "that is neither here nor there. But you do need to be cognizant of politics at our level. Helena, can't go off pissing off people like you did with Prince Harik a few months back."

"Harik?" Cain repeated, giving Corman her best '_you're kidding me'_ sort of look. "He's been a thorn in our side for years, sir, and wants Sixth Fleet's operations scaled back. The man's an idiot and just wants to cut military spending because he's one of those fraking War apologists."

The admiral winced. "Still, you don't call out politicians in front of their friends."

"Yes, sir…" her eyes narrowed, "but apologists, like Harik? I'll take each of them on a personal tour of the Hypathian Ruins and the war orphanages I grew up in. He's scum. The Cylons murdered seven billion of us."

She surprised herself that her voice was actually as level and composed as it was. Inside she was anything but calm and level. War apologists ranked one below Cylons in her book.

"Maybe… well…" Corman looked off towards the glistening bay outside his window. "You're right, he is. But he's a major player in the Planetary Progressives and they got President Adar into office so he's got to appease them somehow and that means he has the president's ear. And Virgon hasn't been shy about stretching its newfound tyllium-fueled wealth around. But that's why the change in politics is so important here. I take it you don't keep up with the political news?"

"Not really, not for the most part, no sir." She confirmed.

"The Senate on Virgon tipped in favor of the Progs last month by twenty-three votes. That means that there's enough that the Progs and Harik don't need a coalition on the planet. There's also a crisis brewing in the People's Council, commander, between the Palladion Union and the Progs. The United Movement is trying to court the Palladions away from the Progs and force a general election in the PC. And President Adar needs both to maintain a ruling coalition and to override the Quorum if he wants more federal control over education and social spending. So Adar needs his Palladions to keep the Progs happy and vice versa.

"A little trivia for you, commander; while the Progs are falling into this War apologist crap the Union has always been straightforward on issues concerning the Cylons, they hate them, just like you and me. We're going to be using that for our advantage. Secretary Prestiok is a Prog. The Palladions are also going through a bit of a power struggle between our boss and Consul Melianos… you know her?" Corman furled his brow down and cocked his head to the side.

"From Tauron? Yes, I've heard of her. She's a big player in our Senate. She's much more hard line when it comes to the Cylons…" she leaned back and folding her arms nodded her approval at her stance on the Cylons. "But anyone who lived through their slaughter on Tauron would be."

"Exactly." Corman pointed a strong finger at her and inverted it and tapped it on the desk. "Politics isn't the military. No orders. Loyalty comes and goes. Consul Melianos is looking for any excuse to get control of the Palladions from President Adar. The United Movement really wants Melianos and she'd take a good chunk of the Palladions. Force a break even within their own party and President Adar's government falls and new elections have to be held. Secretary Pretiok would be out of a job… and he does love his job. It makes his purse heavy with coin, Helena and he's a politician through and through. He even came to us and said put this together. He's giving us the green light to put this together ourselves and plan it."

He leaned back and the corner of his lip quirked up. His smirk broadened to a smile when the 'aha' from the Commander flashed on her face.

"Then the Progs neutralize the UM trying to bait their allies… and we can get the blame for it if whatever we do goes to fraked-up city?"

"More or less." Corman admitted. "But we also get to do things our way without interference- deny and condemn if we fail, commend if we succeed. Politics."

Helena Cain furled her brow down, looked again at the computer sheet, and as she looked back at the Admiral, slowly nodded her consent and understand. "I can see the benefits of taking a little bit more interest in politics, sir."

"Indeed." Corman smiled thoughtfully. "Prince Harik is also painting himself as some sort of progressive populist or something. As the Virgon monarchy loses power he wants to start a political dynasty. And he's only forty-three, so he's got about fifty more years to set something up for his kids. President Adar already made twelve speeches on Virgon since his inauguration last year in support of Harik."

"Hmm." Cain rubbed her chin and winced. "I think ignoring the politics might have put me at a disadvantage, sir."

"There's a few friends I have in the Colonial League I'd like you to meet at some point. But we can discuss that at some other time. I already have enough information and dockets prepared by the S-2 for a briefing to the Secretary, but even he doesn't know of _Night Owl_ or what we found behind the Cylon lines… or I guess I should say the lack of what we found."

Secretaries of War came and went but the military was always there.

Cain narrowed her eyes. "Operation _Night Owl_ only came up with a few small outposts."

"Exactly. Our recon missions over the last few years into Cylon space haven't produced much usable, well, the kind of intelligence we wanted. We found a few facilities, but they're old… and we don't think they're operational. Not really. Like in our previous briefings the analysts think they there for show and I agree." Corman leaned back. "Something isn't adding up, commander. We regularly patrol right up on the line. The Cylons? Nothing…" he waved dismissively, "except for a few old baseship DRADIS contacts about a decade back- which popped up for all of thirty seconds- we haven't seen or heard a peep from them." He handed her an additional comp sheet with roughly fifty dates on it. "That's all the recon we've flown or contacts we've had with the Cylons."

"Cylon DRADIS may be longer range than ours now, sir." Corman nodded at that possibility. "And in thirty-four years they haven't once met with us on _Cenotaph Armistice Station_," Cain observed.

"Which, as you know, has the admiralty and some, um, previous presidential administrations worried. President Adar? Not so much." Corman let out a sigh and rubbed directly above his right eye with his thumb. "Regardless, I'll handle the political side." He reached out and tapped the computer sheet. "We need to find out what 7-1-5 has been detecting. It's one of the farthest ranged pickets we have, about three weeks out under normal jump guidelines, so that information is obviously old. If it's Cylons we'll need at least a battlestar group."

Cain chuckled and smirked. "If they're Cylons, sir? This looks pretty consistent. The picket's DRADIS isn't malfunctioning." She pushed her head back and gave him a look. "Who else could they be? No civilian ship we know of could get out that far or through our detection nets."

"It's a big galaxy… commander, a damn fraking big galaxy."

Her eye brows rose and the glitter of skepticism in her amber-hued eyes made her position clear on what he was implying. She looked out the window to collect her thoughts and then back to Corman.

"Except for the lost city on Crotni we've never encountered anything um… non-Colonial, sir. And that city was a lost ship from Kobolian exodus fleet, sir."

Corman closed his eyes and bobbed his head as he remembered Crotni. He'd been to the planet once during the Cylon War. It was a toxic dump high in carbon dioxide and methane and heavy metals.

"I remember my father telling me about the discovery when he was a kid. First some people thought it was uh… non-human life and then they thought it was the Thirteenth then Kobol. Imagine their disappointment when they found it was a colony from a lost Aquarian ship…" He grunted. "I'm surprised they even got a city going with how unsuitable that place is for life. Aquarians… they have some sort of pig-headiness about them, they never give up. But they are fraking hardy people." Corman finished with a thoughtful nod.

"I seriously doubt we'll find…" she struggled for the word. It was almost distasteful to say it. "Aliens." There, it was out, and Cain felt a bit of dread flutter away. Centuries of space travel and industrial civilization had revealed no aliens. The galaxy as seen from the Colonies was a barren place.

"What remains in the realm of science fiction will hopefully remain in the realm of science fiction. But we need to send a reconnaissance, in force, to 7-1-5's location and out into unknown space. When this report came back I dispatched the _Argus _out there-"

"That seems a bit like overkill, a stealth battlestar?"

"We needed something right now and we can push her FTLs. She'll make some initial recon runs out past 7-1-5's envelope. And she's got a suite of instruments which could help. I also dispatched two scientists out there, Major Jessica Amorak and Doctor Gaius Baltar. Both of them helped develop the newer stealth systems and have been instrumental in making our system Cylon hack resistant. They've studied the Cylons extensively and present us with another opportunity." Corman saw Cain's eyes drop at mention of the two names.

The name 'Amorak' was generally associated with genius, those once-in-a-lifetime persons who somehow swept the establishment out from under their feet. Tassos Amorak was this generation's Daniel Graystone. He was a celebrity scientist who had contracted his service out to the Ministry for an exorbitant sum. The patents he held had made him incredibly wealthy. Gaius Baltar, he star student and associate was modeling his life similarly to Tassos.

"Amorak and Baltar? That means you're thinking about CORA?"

"You're correct, Commander."

"I don't know if Baltar's the safest bet or Amorak, sir. He's been a big proponent of expanding AI research beyond what's related to CORA. And Major Amorak's father was instrumental in getting the holobands unbanned a decade ago. I think their scientific curiosity and need for technology is borderline reckless, sir. They might let their guard down if they get a Cylon to test CORA. They're good in a lab, but in the field? Jessica Amorak might wear the uniform but she's not the typical Fleet officer, sir." She gave him a concerned look.

She had strong doubts about the reasons why the young Amorak had put on the uniform. Helena Cain wasn't one to often question a fellow officer's commitment or reasons for joining the Fleet, but the recently promoted major had always seemed, she wasn't sure, just off. Sometimes it seemed like she was using her position or personal gain or was only in the military for the 'fun of it' like it was some giant joke or challenge.

Cain could readily admit the military opened a lot of doors; it always had been a career maker. Many industrialists and business tycoons had spent at least a few years in the military. It was respected and honored universally throughout the Colonies.

"Major Amorak may surprise you, Helena. And Dr. Baltar is an up and coming. He's already got something like fifteen or twenty patents to his name. And his new software code or whatever it's called is being billed as revolutionary."

"They still seem reckless. With CORA we have to keep everything confined, isolated, sir. But Dr. Baltar thinks we can redesign AIs and _use_ them again. Society is already becoming dependent on the holobands again." She touched her chest. "I wasn't born when it was the thing to do. I _can_ understand why people would want it back because its flashy and fun. For training yes, but for civilians?" She shook her head. "All the documentaries on it make it sound glorious, surreal even, to have a second life where you could do anything and everything."

Corman laid out his hands palms up in a concession. "Society changes and people remembered the V-World and everything in it so you're right, it is surreal. It's a strong draw for someone leading a boring life to be a mob boss or a Viper pilot… frak the consequences." Corman shrugged regrettably at the thought. "President Aminta's regulations on hardware limitations and the V-World are still pretty solid, though… and a tool like that has enough uses we just can't ignore it," he waved a hand, "but you know that. Regardless of who is going on the mission and where _Argus_ is now, we can't keep our only stealth battlestar out there. The picket ship is large enough to hold half a dozen stealth Raptors and _Nyx_ stealth stars. They're going to be offloading them after a few weeks on station and then heading back for a few other operations over the Armistice Line. So what we need are some ships out there with the speed and firepower to fight the Cylons if it comes down to it."

"I think some of the newer battlestars would be best. The _Erynis_ class would probably be the most sensible… they're fast and with more automation have larger air wings and more missiles. So they've got the firepower." Cain offered. "I think BSG Forty-one is due to deploy in a few weeks as part of the fleet exercises, sir."

"If we deploy Forty-One we'll deploy _Valkyrie_… that's Commander Adama's new ship." He rubbed his chin. "He could be a good man for this. Smart and his crewmen deeply respect him. I was deployed with him during the Cylon War on _Olympia_. He shot down four Raiders in the span of about a minute… had ace within a week of getting his wings. He's a solid commander."

"I've met him before, sir. He does have a… presence."

Corman leaned forward and resting his elbows on his desk licked his lips as he thought the idea over. Adama had been a rising star in the fleet during the War and an ace Viper pilot with dozens of kills. Before Husker had been redeployed to _Galactica_ for the last two years in the war, then Major Peter Corman had been his CAG aboard _Olympia_. He'd been saddened to see the man furloughed two years after the War ended and had always regretted not learning about the furlough in time to use his family influence to stop it.

_Frak, if I'd done that there is no doubt we'd have a Vice Admiral William Adama by now_, he thought, mentally kicking himself again. _Past is the past and he's in now and he's cool and level-headed, rational, and has the guts to make potentially career-ending calls in the name of duty and oath._

Only a full commander could take the reins of the mightiest warships to plow the space lanes of the galaxy and be deployed on such a high risk mission. He considered sending a few of the rear admirals but struck out that idea as too high profile. Sending a flag officer on some 'routine' deployment would raise too many eyebrows. Adama didn't know this, but the day he'd made commander Corman had quietly slipped his name onto the Red List; the list of candidates for rear admiral.

Red List was completely unofficial as far as the Bureau of Personnel was concerned, but every line admiral like Corman knew of its existence. It was one of those 'known secrets' everyone knew existed but never talked about.

If someone made the list then the flag officers watched that person like a Canceron dive hawk. Then if they met the unofficial approval of the flag officers their name was moved to the official Green List for discussion at the biannual promotion boards.

The Admiral's chin dimpled as he nodded his approval at his idea to deploy Adama. He owed the man and the man deserved it. This mission was vital to the security of the Colonies and forty-five billion humans. Everything could be dependent on this mission. Or nothing.

But Corman was an old sailor. A veteran of the Fifth Colonial Conflict and the entirety of the Cylon War, his fifty-one year career had taught him some important lessons, among them perhaps the most important; trust in yourself.

He sincerely hoped that the Lords of Kobol and their unseen and unfelt hands were helping him guide his decision. Something felt off, not wrong, but just off. It was… he had a hard time placing the feeling. It was so similar yet so different to the first time he'd seen a Cylon. Seeing them had sent chills down his spine while being the most exciting thing he'd seen as a kid. He couldn't place it and instead of fretting over the feel, went back to that lesson of trusting in oneself.

"Commander, I think William Adama would be an excellent choice for this mission. Get the staff together and coordinate with Vice Admiral Marak's staff… he has control over that part of the fleet, and start going over a plan for deployment. Rear Admiral Sirus is in charge of that BSG but he's needed for fleet exercises and currently with Forty-Two and Forty-Three… so I think we can use that as our cover for Adama." He tapped a fist on the desk until its sound became that of a gradual, pacing knock. "If the Cylons are out there then by the Gods we're going to find out what they're doing!"

* * *

**Delphi City**

**D14/23347**

**

* * *

  
**

Commander Adama leaned back and closed his eyes. He heard the subdued spring breeze kick up and felt it bathe his skin in its warmth. The wind chimes outside produced their own delicious melody, easy on the ears, and he breathed in slowly as he felt content and secure in his home.

He could taste the salt water a short walk from his home and could hear the motor boats roaring across the blue waters of Lake Petron. He regretted not taking his boat out

His tunic was unbuttoned and there was a glass of Tauron Falcon brandy, a gift from his father a decade ago, half filled, sitting on his desk, begging for him to finish it and enjoy the fine liquid as it gracefully swam down his throat. He leaned back and closed his eyes and a powerful smile crossed his lips.

He snatched the glass up, gulped the last remnants of the finely aged liquor and let it roll down the back of his throat. The Old Man then opened his eyes again and nodded to himself, content, as he surveyed his domain. From his spacious office, he could see the great room just through the glass doors, the sitting area, and the large alcove with a magnificent mahogany table, crafted on Virgon- custom designed by his wife- and shipped to Caprica. It had been a 'family present' after his promotion to Commander. _A very expensive present_, Adama mused silently, _but a well earned one_. It had been more for his wife than anyone else.

He'd bought personal _Chariot_ civilian VTOL which he'd only taken up a few dozen times in the last two years. It sat down at the municipal airfield where he rented it out to pay for the hanger and insurance costs.

Not that he really needed to rent it out. Commander's pay, if he had to sum it up in one word, was extravagant. But Carolanne was used to a certain standard of living.

Around his office he surveyed and studied the floor to ceiling bookcases, glass doors protecting his collection of classical Colonial literature safe from accident. On the walls were pictures of him in Vipers, Raptors, Rattlers, an old Caprican Hawk and a Picon Asp attack fighter and half a dozen other old fighter planes and interceptors. There was also a picture of every warship he'd ever served on.

This was the last time he would sit in this office for what could be six to eight months. His new mission weighed heavily on him, its importance to the Colonies and its potential difficulty, but he let himself relax as one picture out of the dozens caught his eye. It was an old group photo of his squadron on _Galactica_, two weeks before Operation Raptor Talon. His eyes kept lingering to one person, one woman whom he'd met and shared so much with…

Quickly, he moved on. Before every deployment he always retreated to his office where h could focus

A picture of his eldest son stared at him from the bookshelf next to his desk and he reached forward, his old chair squeaking, and gently lifted it. He rubbed his thumb over it lovingly and the corner of his lip moved slowly upwards as he remembered twenty-two years of joy and happiness… except for when Lee was two. He chuckled at that year, the 'Terrible Twos', only to be repeated by his brother.

A picture of his youngest sat next to Lee's and as he put Lee's back he picked up Zak's frame. The young kid, with midnight black-hair, and those big blue eyes somehow pierced into the Old Man's heart like the sharpest of razors. His son looked handsome in his Fleet regulation hair cut and sharp dress uniform, and Bill smiled at the innocent troubles his son had been a part of at the Fleet Academy.

It was unlike an Adama to not get in just a little bit of trouble when attending an institution of higher learning, and his two sons had carried the tradition. Lee, in comparison to his brother, was a saint by all accounts. He'd made some trouble early in this plebe and third class year but quickly squared away… maybe a few weeks confinement to Academy grounds and a couple dozen demerits and penalty marches.

Zak on the other hand, was still a plebe and had more confinement racked up than his elder brother had gotten in four years. Him and his gang of friends were mischievous and he'd heard rumors of a third class midshipwoman- whom Adama noted his son had a definite crush on by the way he talked about her which he was probably oblivious to- had been helping them in their exploits.

He put the picture back, withdrew his hand, and then with _something _bothering him, just had to touch the picture frames again and rearrange them and straightened them until they were just right. He was proud of them and nodded at the pictures as he slid his chair back, stepped to the side, and pushed it back it.

Carefully he buttoned his tunic and tugged down his sleeves. He took the same eight steps from his desk to his study door, turned, and closed them gently behind him.

This was it. As commander of _Valkyrie_, one of the most advanced battlestars in the Fleet, he was given the tough missions. He was the go-to-guy. But with the Colonies at peace and united the toughest missions were anti-piracy operations, rescues, patrols, and some training. And of course there was the occasional black ops thrown in, like right now. His career was moving forward rapidly…

"So… the Commander is leaving again." A judging, hateful voice called out from the other room.

…but as a father and definitely as a husband, he was wanting.

His breath escaped in a light sight as his eyes closed and he mentally cringed.

"So when should I expect you back? Will you even come back or is your metal mistress going to take you away?"

Adama turned to see his wife emerge, wine glass in hand, and he looked away before he thought of how many she had had that day.

"I'll try and be back as soon as I can, Carolanne," he replied, looking at the hardwood floors and ornate area rugs they had bought. A sad grin flashed across the Old Man's tired face. Those rugs had been the last time they'd bought anything together… and he mentally shook his head at the pitiful memory. "It'll be a few months, six to eight maybe. I'm sorry."

"Of course you are, Bill, always sorry. You go and run off with Saul… I swear you love that man more than your own wife and children and your family."

His jaw muscles clenched. "Don't start, Carolanne, not now."

"It's never the time? Base to base, fleet op to fleet op, cruise to cruise..." she hit her thigh and took a drink of wine. "Why are we even living here? Why not sell this place and buy a one bedroom in this boring city? Delphi City? It pretends to be Cap City or Oasis when it's just a pitiful imitator. You're here maybe three months out of ten. All the while else you're on your precious tin ship."

"I'll be back as soon as I am. It's a survey mission, dear-" she snorted as that word because she knew 'survey mission' was Fleet lingo for 'classified' "-and I'll be back as soon as I can."

Carolanne took another sip and plopped herself lazily onto the couch. She snapped off one high heel and toed off the other. "Don't start with the lies. Just go." She waved a backhand to him.

He nodded once to himself, to the back of her sandy-blonde hair and picked up a briefcase from the side table. A part of him wanted to just leave her in her own silence, but he couldn't do that to her. "I'll be back as soon as I can… I love you."

Silence followed him out the door.

**Myrmidon Fleet Station, **

**In Orbit over Caprica**

**E07/23347**

The sounds of dinner slowly began to cease as the china was carted away by the stewards and the Gemenese diamond crystal drink ware was delicately picked up by white-gloved stewards and removed from the long conference-turned-dinner table. An assembly of ship COs and XOs from Battlestar Group Forty-One, a few staff officers and a vice admiral, Viktor Marak, all sat back and sipped on post-dinner selections of tawny wine and sweet brandy shipped in from throughout the Colonies.

The meal was traditional for the commanders and XOs of a battlestar group before a long-term deployment. Vice Admiral Marak, as CO of Task Group Six Seven with five battlestar groups, was tasked with the traditional pre-deployment dinner for the ship commanders and executive officers, and as always put on an excellent showing.

With over a hundred-twenty thousand men and women under his command, Marak enjoyed these small get-togethers with his senior officers. He knew a few of his commanders and colonels weren't into the whole 'wine and dine', but tradition had to be maintained. Plus there weren't many occasions to break out his personal collection of rare diamond crystal.

All of the COs and XOs were aware they'd be heading towards the extreme periphery of Colonial space. The Piera Sector had been mapped in recent years and Tauron and Virgon tyllium companies were busy laying claim to asteroids and moons in the region, but there were less than a thousand humans in nearly a hundred thousand cubic light years of space.

Colonel Saul Tigh, sipping on a glass of post-dinner wine, ruminated over their upcoming mission as he surveyed each of the XOs around the table with tired and somewhat suspicious eyes. He leaned over to his friend and commander and whispered in his ear. "Quite a show for the meal, Bill… just hope the tax payers don't find out about it."

The meal had been imported South Slope Tauron beef from the Marchion provinces and generous amounts of expensive blood potatoes imported that morning from Caprica's southern continent. The blood potatoes alone, notorious for rapidly spoiling, were twice as expensive as the South Slope beef and would have driven tax watch groups crazy as it was 'wasteful' and 'elitist' to spend so much on a meal for senior fleet officers.

The Old Man to his right quietly snickered and leaned back in. "I won't tell if you don't, Saul." He said in an airy voice complimented with a soft chuckle. He opened his mouth to finish the thought but felt a soft touch on his right shoulder. Looking over he smiled at the woman.

Commander Allison Vasic, an old friend from early in Adama's career, withdrew her hand and raised her head from its side bend. She pushed back a loose strand of black hair back behind her ear. Her smile was accentuated by a strong jaw and slender neck.

"It's an honor to be working with you again, Commander." Her dark emerald eyes caught the light and glittered at his smile.

"It's been too long… Commander." The right corner of his mouth flicked up.

"If it wasn't for you, Bill sticking up for us after the Madison Op I wouldn't be here." She leaned in closer so no one else would hear. "I don't think I ever had the chance to tell you how truly grateful I was. How we all were for that." She closed her eyes and a puff of air escaped her nostrils as a sour thought ruminated in her mind. "That took guts to stand up to the Admiralty and the political puppet masters."

Adama felt an urge to reach out, touch her shoulder, and give it a reinforcing squeeze. But he kept his right hand firmly planted on his knee, almost to the point of pain.

He'd never had a second thought about standing up for her or the others the Admiralty was ready to toss to the politicians as scapegoats. Adama had known her for years and knew her record and her personality. Vasic was a fine officer and the way the Fleet had treated her, and him, all of them, had been an embarrassment. That was only the second time in his long career he'd temporarily lost his pride in the Fleet. The first had been on the ice planet Erebus and how the battlestars in orbit hadn't stopped that Cylon ship from escaping with human prisoners.

She'd been a divisional officer aboard _Olympus_, the first ship he'd been deployed on as tactical officer after being re-commissioned back into the fleet. Like Adama she'd joined during the war, but she'd only seen the tail end, joining when she was sixteen (after faking her papers) and after training saw combat during the last year of the war aboard the battlestar _Athena_ as a Viper technician.

After being selected for the enlisted to officer program, Silver to Gold, she'd become a Viper pilot. Unlike Adama she couldn't wear the gold senior flight insignia, since she didn't have the nine kills required for ace, but wore the silver insignia proudly on her golden sash which partially obstructed three lines of colorful ribbons.

She looked young for her age, easily by five or six years and definitely not her still young fifty years old.

Commander Adama was glad, relieved even, to have her as his second in command on this mission. She was one of the best officers he'd even had the privilege of serving with. And he was also forced to admit to himself that her storming into his office and demanding _something_ be done about Madison was probably the reason why he'd acted. But he didn't want to think about that, not right now. That was the past and the tumultuous days surrounding that cluster frak were over. This mission was proof enough of that.

Looking at her and then casting his eyes towards the table, focusing a bit too heavily on the glass she was holding between thumb and index finger, he caught a glitter in the corner of his eye from her uniform.

The Medal of Distinction, a golden triangular insignia adorned by a slim line of silver from the tip to the base and with two bronze colored fasces facing inward on her sash was proof enough of her courage, loyalty, and intelligence. She'd saved sixteen crewmembers during Operation _Raptor Talon_ from a tyllium fire by somehow fixing fire suppression equipment damaged in the battle above the planet.

"I just did what was right," Adama said his typically quiet voice after a pause. "They wanted to hush up how he'd manipulated them… it comes with the territory, unfortunately."

"Still…" Vasic said with a sigh, "we all appreciate it. Fred, he still sacrifices a goat every month at the Temple of Mars in your honor." She saw Adama look down a little- she could tell he was embarrassed- but he flashed her a little appreciative lip smile. "I know the gods and all that aren't really your thing, Bill, but I guess it's his way of thanking you…" she tapped him with a gentle fist, "and don't go telling him I told you he does that or he'll kill me!" She joked.

Adama leaned back when Tigh put a little pressure on his left shoulder.

"Commander Vasic," the older man mused, chewing on her new rank and title, "it's going to be a wild ride as this man's second in command of a BSG," he joked, jabbing his thumb at the Old Man. "He puts those old Virgon slave drivers to shame!" He let out a deep belly laugh and took a very generous swig of his brandy.

The Old Man gave Tigh one of his looks. To a casual observer unaware of the deep friendship and bond the two men shared it'd look like the CO was annoyed with his XO. Between them it was friendly with a bit of a humorous undertone without the laughing or chuckling.

"I don't doubt that, Saul," Vasic said, furling her eye brows in and feigning concern. "I just hope _Valkyrie_ can match _Gorgon_ in the pre-deployment simulations." She faked a wince for him and then shrugged. "I've been studying your fleet maneuvers, commander, and I'm confident we'll best your battlestar, Bill."

"Hm, I'm sure you have that a bit reversed there, Allison…" he trailed off while giving her a sidelong glance. He turned his attention from the two friends next to him and focused in on Vice Admiral Marak.

"Maybe I've got to rub that herm a little harder for some luck then?"

Adama rolled his eyes while she tried to contain a toothy, a definitely girlish, grin.

"Commanders and Colonels," a strong, almost husky voice similar to Adama's sounded through the room, "I want to thank you all for dinner this evening. And we must all thank Chief Frasier, the chef, for the excellent preparation of our meal and the drink selection. I have no idea how I would hold these meals without him…" There was a rise of the wine and brandy glasses and a few 'here-here's' and everyone took a sip. "And in the tradition of closing the dinner before delivering the final… and don't worry, short briefing, I offer this toast…" he raised his glass, "To the success of the mission, to the honor of the Fleet, to the continued prosperity of the Colonies of Kobol, and for the glory of the Gods!"

"So say we all!" Everyone ended in a flurry of voices from husky to deep baritone to light soprano. The assembled officers, all with at least one last sip so as not to be caught without a drink for the closing toast, finished off the last of their glasses.

Without being summoned the stewards came in and removed the last remnants of the dinner. They carted away the few left over dishes and removed the table cloth, revealing a glossy oak table underneath with the Colonial Seal, colored in blue, orange, and yellow was brightly emblazoned on the table, and the stewards finished by setting down pitchers of water and glasses for the officers. Once they were done a man at the end of the table Adama recognized as the intelligence officer stood up and walked to the head of the table and positioned himself to Marak's rear left.

The intelligence officer was a commander, but his sash, while gold-colored, had a distinctive gray streak through the top running its length, about a half centimeter in width. He didn't wear the commanding officer's insignia on his sash and instead wore a bronze circular insignia with two silver lightning bolts flanking a central closed scroll.

Adama's hand almost reflexively brushed over his own command insignia on his sash. The Ship Command Insignia was given to each individual who held command of a warship, from a picket to a battlestar. The SCI was a sword flanked by olive branches; the sword represented the strength and tenacity of the Colonies with the fleet its defender, while the olive branches represented peace the prosperity only possible by the Fleet's vigilance. It rested to the right of his four pointed Star of the Gods- each point represented Apollo, Poseidon, Athena, and the fourth the personal patron god of the individual sailor.

The golden-gray buckle on each sides of the waist sash had been replaced by a pure black oval buckle. His dress grays were slightly different with a piped black stripe around the neck instead of the maroon of a line officer. Some of the fleet thought the black was too dark, conveying a sense of secrecy within the intelligence departments, but of the half dozen colors the fleet used, Adama personally preferred it after his own maroon.

The commander, despite his uniform being different from the others, was a man of average height and features with the exception of a strong, almost square jaw line and sandy blonde hair. He nodded to Vice Admiral Marak and produced from a brief case enough comp sheets for each of the officers present. They were the secured military types without wireless capability and were impossible to alter unless plugged in directly to the work station which had produced them. The Fleet Intelligence Directorate, the premier military intelligence division, was known for its near obsessive compulsiveness over security. Even in a room with such senior officers who were routinely vetted and their backgrounds examined FID took no chances.

"I'm Commander Marc Bannon, S-2 for Sixth Fleet."

Adama mentally rolled his eyes. Everyone knew the S-2 for the Fleet. Maybe not personally but at least knew what he looked like.

Bannon moved straight into his purpose there. "If you will please input the following pass code," he began, "Mu, omega, alpha, omega, chi, sigma." The computer sheets beeped and turned from their background red to a dulled blue. "Please place your thumbs in the rectangular box and simultaneously tap zeta," he instructed.

Adama did as instructed, silently cursing the technology at his fingertips. He'd seen a push away from technology during the Cylon War. They were too good at hacking into networked systems and finding backdoors the military had had to go low tech and brute force- the _Columbia_ battlestars and associated destroyers and cruisers built during the war- but afterwards the Colonies had taken a serious look at computer security. Without a war and the threat of complete genocide of the species looming over their head the military had instituted practical methods to combat hacking. Computer sheets, holobands, and computerized systems were too important as tools for communications and training- especially holobands and their neural feedback for training- to simply abandon.

The Fleet believed it had solved a lot of the past problems with Cylon hacking, though no one knew for certain.

The entire Colonial computer security doctrine was based on a classified paper only senior commanders and those in need to know positions had accessed to.

The black paper had basically outlined the probable paths the Cylons would advance their technology and means to counter this hypothetical advancement. Their FTL systems would be so accurate due to advances in computers they would have the strategic and tactical initiative. Because the Cylons knew the locations of all the important Colonial bases, planets, and moons they could dictate the course of a battle and decided when and where to attack. When it came down to it the Colonies were stuck between a rock tapped up with nuclear mines and a hard place called species-wide extinction.

Brute force could only work so far. The Colonies needed to limit the Cylon advantages as much as possible.

Commander Adama and Colonel Tigh, as CO and XO of the flagship had already been briefed, and the other officers of _Gorgon_, _Pan_, _Attia_, and _Chios_ had received limited briefings with more of the specifics to come now, with specific intelligence files delivered to their ship intelligence officers.

Running a quick mental check he ran through the names of the FID officers being sent to his ships. Sometimes they could be… obstructive. He silently snickered at some of the more colorful experiences he'd had with the FID. After Operation Raptor Talon he never wanted to be debriefed by FID again. They could be intense.

That could be a good word to describe them, he concluded; intense. But the one assigned to _Valkyrie_ and thus the senior intelligence officer of the five vessels would be Captain Melica Upland. He'd had some input into picking his ship's intel officers and she'd been a capable and bright young woman back on _Atlantia_ when he was XO.

His thoughts switched back to the briefing.

_Everyone else here just had to endure a two hour dinner slash time waster to get to it_, Adama thought, annoyed and somewhat bored with the tradition, the pomp, and the ceremony. His bright blue eyes dulled as he focused on Commander Bannon.

"For approximately six months a picket ship, designated 7-1-5 and unofficially known as the _Lucky Tonight…_" Bannon began and then was forced to pause for a few chuckles. He saw the humor and smirked, too, with a head shake thrown in towards Vice Admiral Marak, "…has been detecting anomalous DRADIS contacts. It's never been able to get anything clearer than this picture."

He tapped a key and a projection on the wall's monitor changed from a map with the picket's position to a fuzzy picture of blots. It was the most recent they had and unfortunately no clearer than the one he'd given Admiral Corman weeks ago.

"No ships were able to get in any closer?" Colonel Solva Jakobs, CO of the attackstar _Pan_ asked. He scratched behind his left ear. "Even at this range the resolution… it should have produced a clear computer-gen image." He said matter-of-fact.

"We attempted to get closer but _Lucky Tonight's _CO played it safe. We sent Raptors with DRADIS buoys, but still nothing. And Colonel, you're right, it should have been able to render a better image," Bannon affirmed. A set of wrinkles appeared abruptly over his eyes as he frowned at the screen. "The picket was equipped with the _Theia-_IV DRADIS dishes and control systems. So it's top of the line and only one generation behind the fifth generation _Theia_ dishes we're throwing into the _Mercury_ classes. We think it may be a new Cylon stealth craft."

"Cylons?" Vasic questioned. "All the way out there?" She frowned to herself.

"The reason they may be out there, Commander, is due to this." The screen changed again and dozens of red circles appeared. "We sent _Argus_ in a month ago but she's currently on her way back. She ran extended DRADIS sweeps of this block of space," he tapped another button and the area was outlined in a bright white 3D grid, "and there is enough tyllium in that region of space it puts the Corvus mines to shame. More than we ever dreamed was out there. We think it is the Cylons, and I have to stress think." He didn't give enough time for anyone to question his choice of words. "And FID has been running simulations on this comp-gen image. No known Cylon DRADIS spoofers or electronic mites or any known EW system could produce this based on known designs or designs following their, er, aesthetic. Not even the models being lit up by old fashioned radar. LIDAR didn't work, either.

"This mission, basically, has two priorities. The first is to identify this contact. Whatever it is. That's why we're going to be sending out BSG Four-One. The second is to find suitable locations for a space station and begin laying down remote DRADIS buoys at tyllium-rich sites. Out that way in the sector there's been a few dozen tyllium scalpers contracted to the big firms, but other than that, nothing."

He didn't mention the third reason. That was to come later from Baltar and Amorak.

Vice Admiral Marak joined the conversation at this point. "Even if we don't find anything out there and this object or whatever it is," he gestured at the screen, "is nothing important we still want a fleet base out there. It's been a goal of the Fleet to get the Expeditionary Corps re-funded up to how it used to be before the plethora of wars prior to reunification." He shrugged. "And with all that tyllium out there it only makes sense and we can get cheap fuel, too.

"Now, because it could be the Cylons and because there could be a Cylon fleet or Gods know what else, the Admiralty has authorized _Stone Burner_-VI nuclear ship-to-ship missiles to be loaded onto the battlestars and attackstars instead of your planetary strike missiles. They've got the new penetration aides, EW systems, and the works. That will give this BSG a full task force strike capability, basically two BSGs. That's also why we're detaching _Gorgon_ as an additional battlestar. Two battlestars and three attackstars loaded with _Burners_ should give you enough fire power to stop anything short of the main Cylon fleet."

Tigh whistled softly and glanced over at Adama. "You knew about this?" He whispered. A nod confirmed the XO's suspicions.

Colonel Michael Tassi, Vasic's XO, made the observation on everyone's mind. "How is this supposed to play out, sir, if they are Cylon are, um… well, sir," he shrugged, "non-hostile?"

"That's sort of a stretch, Mike," Colonel Felicity Sava, CO of the attackstar _Attia_ chimed in with a light huff. "Non-hostile Cylons…" she gave him a look. Hey gray eyes were on the verge of rolling.

She was like many others in the Fleet and in the Colonies; willing to let the Cylons head off into the deep black void of space, but unwilling to ever consider them not a threat. Sava had lost two grandparents and half a dozen cousins and uncles and aunts on Canceron during the war. Her family had been cut in half. The wounds from the Cylon War were too deep to forget.

"True, to a point," Tassi conceded, "But they've been pretty quiet since the War ended."

While Adama, Tigh, Vasic, and Marak had been old enough to fight in the war, most of the other officers had not. To the War veterans the idea of a 'non-hostile' Cylon was about as strange and as likely as one of them sprouting wings and flying away at that very moment. The only reason Cylons took prisoners was to hold them hostage as shields against bombing runs.

And as Adama thought of the idea of a 'non-hostile' Cylons his memories flashed back to Raptor Talon and the grotesque experiments and _Diana_.

In the room it basically came down to half having fought in the war and half being too young. To round out those who had fought was the CO of _Chios_, an Aquarian, Colonel George Korzha who fought as an enlisted Marine at sixteen and saw four years combat on eight of the twelve Colonies, two moons, and even had a zero-gee combat badge. Then like so many other he marshaled out and for five years spent his time earning a doctorate in sociology from Cap U, all paid for by the Veteran's Education and Sustainment Act.

Bannon nodded with a throatily hummed acknowledgment. "The Cylons have been quiet and S-2 has briefed everyone here in the past weeks on our covert expeditions into Cylon space. We gave them that region for two reason; one, we didn't think there was much out there rim ward. Except for the Colonies this is a fairly barren region of space when it comes to planets. Nothing we've found is remotely habitable except for a few exceptions, like that ice ball Erebus. And two, it was multiple jumps from Colonial space so any attack would be picked up by our frontier detection nets."

Commander Adama and Commander Vasic both gave each other discreet looks at the mention of that planet. Despite their different experiences over and on the planet, the memories were horrible; sailors and friends burned alive or people chopped up as part of human experimentation.

"This has also come back to bite us. Since we didn't know exactly what we were giving the Cylons- no time or resources for survey ships- we just gave it to them." Bannon's blue eyes caught the light and reflected a deep concern emanating from his core.

Admiral Marak raised a hand to interrupt the Commander.

"A lot won't admit to this," Marak said, "especially some of the civilian leadership, but Cimtar put us in a horrible strategic position. With recent advances in FTL technology and point-to-point quick drive systems, warfare is changing. The drives we're equipping the Raptor-III's with and the _Mercury_'s will allow us quick, rapid jumping we've only been able to dream about. However, all our analysts say if we have it, the Cylons probably will as well since that's where all our research was heading before the wars. Unfortunately…

"The Cylons know where our planets are. We don't know where the Cylon planets are." He gestured at the large wall monitor and Bannon switched the view to one more compressed and showing the Twelve Colonies and significant space assets as red circular blips. "The Cylons were still chained to the Colonies during the War, so use of nukes would have meant assured destruction of both sides and the destruction of the first Ragnar Anchorage by Admiral Makos kept strategic nukes from their hands."

After the Battle of Caprica Admiral Kessandra Makos, the Caprican field admiral had guessed, correctly, that the Cylons would be going for strategic nuclear weapons. Their battle fleets had been pushed back from Caprican orbit- due to the quick actions of Makos and other field commanders- and were unable to secure the thousands of strategic nuclear warheads they would need to destroy population centers. The original Ragnar had had a stockpile of powerful MIAVs, multiple independent attack vehicle, armed missiles. Makos had been forced to knock the station out of orbit when the Cylon fleet broke through her lines, destroying a major Caprican supply depot and sending twenty-five thousand to their depths, crushed in the heavy atmosphere of Ragnar.

"Because the Cylons seemed to be trying to conquer and wipe us out, without ever really deciding which they wanted, that's why anything larger than the tactical variety was never used on the ground. The factories and facilities to produce Cylons were also mostly ground-based, too. And even then…" his eyebrow ticked up and he shook his head. "But if we don't know where the Cylons are that puts them at an advantage and us at a disadvantage. We still believe the majority of the Cylon nation is mobile to some capacity and if we find Cylons out here where we'll be sending all of you… well, Commander Bannon will explain more concerning what FID thinks."

He nodded to the FID operative to continue.

"Thank you, admiral." Bannon said and turned back to the group. "Picket 7-1-5 and the lack of DRADIS signatures over the armistice line are the two pieces of information which concern us. When must consider the irregularities as they are presented to us. The irregularities…" he repeated softly, clasping his hands at his waist, "are the lack of Cylon patrols, the belief that their listening stations are merely for show, not once meeting us for any of the annual reconciliation and information exchanges on _Cenotaph_… and now with Picket 7-1-5's anomalous readings over the last six months… if is our opinion at FID that the Cylons are no longer behind the line."

"No longer behind the line," a few echoed in disbelief.

Everyone who wasn't Tigh, Adama, or Marak went almost rigid in their seat and each looked to the other in silent concern.

Korzha lifted his hand from the table and got Bannon's attention. "So this means the Cylons could basically be anywhere? This basically means the Colonies could be sitting ducks… we'd be forced on the defensive and forced to engage at a time and place of their choosing if they ever came back to finish us off."

"That's the case," Marak said. All eyes turned towards him. "And that's one of the reasons we're sending you out." He rested his elbows and forearms on the table and leaned forward. "I don't have to tell you this, but I will stress, that the fleet is facing cutbacks. Defense spending is nearly eight and a half percent of gross planetary commercial product. Whether we, as military officers wish to admit it," he placed a palm over his sash, "our jobs are dependent on threats. No threats, no military… a day held up on the altar to the Gods," his tone took a condescending tone, "and which some say we should all strive for. That's irresponsible. And the current administration is proposing a cutback of nearly fifteen percent over the next four years…" he looked at each one of them in the eye. "I won't lie. FID is concerned. It isn't public what we've seen and our conclusions are classified, but it's, in one word, concerning. We can't keep tabs on their war machine. They could have a fleet ready to attack right now. If the Cylons are out there, we need to know."

* * *

**Myrmidon Fleet Station **

**Later that Evening**

**

* * *

  
**

Back in seclusion and in a dimly lit office, Marc Bannon unfastened his sash and tossed it unceremoniously down on the coffee table. Pinching his nose firmly between index finger and thumb, he squeezed and rubbed until he felt his headache lessen. He hated drinking. He hated the tradition of alcohol aboard Fleet warships and while he was used to it he still despised the tradition with every fiber of his being.

The intelligence operative looked around the small office and smiled as his eyes caught the jug of ice water on a refreshment cart. He nodded approvingly at his yeoman's forth sightedness and her anticipation. It was almost too bad she'd be leaving soon, on maternity leave, and away from the intelligence directorate. She'd been a smart, fierce little woman who had been privy to just about as much classified intelligence reports as he had.

Scowling for a moment he raised his chin and bobbed his head and snapping his fingers, realized he still needed to write that letter for her. He remembered she was going to be moving to the Office of Territorial Intelligence as a civilian. Grunting, he again regretted losing his assistant of five years but felt happy for her. She was married, expecting twins, and had a loving husband. And OTI would be paying her almost double what she had been earning.

He poured a glass and swirled it in front of his eyes. His jaw clicked as he lightly clicked his lightly clicked his teeth. It was his little nervous tick, the thing he did to make himself feel comfortable. Bannon never did it in public of course. In public he was a straight shooting, stoic, middle aged intelligence officer who worked fifteen hour days, never took a vacation unless his CO ordered it, and never- according to his friends- had any fun.

A soft knock at the door brought him back from his parade of thoughts. Looking over at the clock he frowned at the blocky, pale green numbers. It was late, or early, and he shrugged. It was all relative. It was midday back on Picon and the space lag was still bothering him as his body acclimated to Caprican Standard.

His office was in the FID wing of Myrmidon, a massive fleet station which could home port nearly a dozen battlestar groups and their auxiliaries, a quarter million personnel permanent, and keep enough supplies on hand to feed everyone and deploy every ship for an entire year.

Even in the FID wing security was almost obsessively tight. FID _was _staffed with obsessive-compulsive for the most part. No one else could do their job or fret over just small details.

A dozen FID trained guards stood watch at each of the three entrances to the wing, which was large enough for a bit over four thousand personnel, and an entire company of Marines provided a fast reaction force in addition to security guards. Doors required retinal scans and alpha numeric codes to open, doors always closed automatically, and if they stayed open longer than twenty seconds a silent alarm alerted security.

He tapped a button on the side of his desk and his computer monitor came out of its dull, blackened power saving mode and shined brightly in his eyes, forcing him to hold up his hand due to the light having been so low, and he recognized the woman.

Bannon looked himself over quickly, flattened the front of his tunic and snatched the sash back up and quickly put it back on. Dress grays required the sash and he was a stickler for proper appearances. Buckling it at his right hip he buzzed in Captain Melica Upland and side stepped from his desk to greet her.

"Captain Upland, a pleasure." His voice was light and airy but there was a slight curiosity in the tone even he hadn't realized was present.

He met her halfway between the hatch and his desk. Upland was one of the up-and-coming FID officers with Sixth Fleet. She walked up and looked him in the eye. She was almost as tall as he was. Her grip was firm and she was deceptively strong despite her petite frame.

"Commander Bannon…" they grasped each other's forearms above the wrist and shook, "I wasn't sure if you'd want to see me this… uh…" as they released their grasps she checked her watch, "wow, I didn't realize how long the presentation had gone, sir." She sounded apologetic.

"That's alright, captain. I wasn't planning on hitting my rack for a few hours yet." He waved away the concern about the late hour and motioned to a seat. "I apologize, I don't have any alcohol, but would you care for some ice water?" He offered, already at the cart. Assuming she'd answered in the affirmative he poured a glass for her and a fresh one for himself. "Here you go." He handed it to her.

"Thank you, sir." She smiled and closed her eyes as she took a sip. "Nothing is more refreshing than this after a long briefing."

The Commander nodded his acknowledgment and took a seat. He tapped a button and the overhead lights came on. He cleared what little was on his desk and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk and placing the glass down.

"Hmmm… about that, captain, I am to assume all went well?"

"Yes, sir, extremely well. I briefed my counterparts on the other ships and our staffs."

"That's good, captain." He kept his tone neutral. Bannon cocked his head back a little and let his still growing eyes- despite the time- examined her discreetly. "Something else is on your mind." Her eyes had seemed to glaze slightly, like something was concerning her.

Her nostrils flared and the side of her lip creased up. "There's something that's been bothering all of us, sir… it's just…" she trailed off and fidgeted for a moment with the glass, staring at it for a few too many seconds.

"I can't read minds, captain."

"Of course, sir." She was direct and immediate and his curt comment wasn't taken as something personal. Upland was honest enough to admit she was slightly intimidated. Commander Bannon was a legend within the clubby atmosphere of FID and she sort of felt like a new midshipman at the Fleet Academy talking with the commandant. Realizing the only way she'd get to bed- something she craved- at a reasonable hour was to just suck it up, she asked her question. "To put it in blunt terms, sir, what if we encounter aliens?"

"Aliens?" His eyebrow raised and he cast his ice cold eyes down. He'd half expected the commanders and colonels earlier to raise the point. They almost had but he'd barreled through. Wagging a finger he expanded his thought. "That's pretty direct, captain, not many officers are eager to discuss the possibility of extraterrestrial sapient life…"

"Crotni, sir."

"… sure, I guess. But they're dumb animals barely worthy of the name. There's a ton of microbes on most of the moons, and those ice demons on Erebus…" He frowned and leaned back until his neck was firmly against the top edge of his chair. He reflexively looked to his right, where there was a window in his actually office on Picon. "We've been looking for a long time-"

"But… it could still be a possibility. We're in a fairly barren part of the galaxy. The star clusters out there," she waved to the side, "produce intense ambient light and our telescopes may be blinded-"

Bannon held up a hand. "Captain, this mission isn't about finding alien life. It's about the Cylons. Finding the Cylons is priority. Listen." He leaned forward again, elbows on the table, and rested his chin thoughtfully on clasped fists. "I'm a fan of science fiction, as I can guess you are." In fact, he knew she was. He knew everything about her. Like his superiors knew everything about him. "I like to believe; want to believe there is other life out there. _Life here began out there_, as you recall from the Sacred Scrolls…?" He tilted his head and waited.

"Yes…" Upland said uneasily. "The Sacred Scrolls… the most Holy Text, written thirty-six hundred Kobolian years ago." She recited that little snippet of history without a hint of emotion in her voice. Her eyes and expression were almost blank.

The FID commander thought her tone was a bit dry.

"Exactly, captain. And point of fact, you got a little defensive prematurely." He licked his lips and flashed a look of concern her way. FID officers had it drilled into them to sit back and listen when someone was lecturing. Waiting and listening to what one said, not just words but the tone, the pitch, could be a valuable treasure of information for a trained officer. "If we encounter aliens I trust Commander Adama's judgment. He's an excellent officer. And there are those contact protocols." Bannon's lip curled up as he gauged Upland's reaction to his 'if we encounter aliens…' statement. "Because, between you and me, I do think there has to be something out there… hm, have you ever been to the Ruins of Karam?"

"On Aerilon? No, sir. I'm not too familiar with ancient Aerilon history, sir."

"An ancient empire by the same name which appeared and disappeared relatively quickly when about a dozen or so of the Aerilon colony ships broke off under High Councilor Aldius." He pointed at an old book on one of the shelves off to the side. "He wrote a book on science and the gods, how it's their gift to us."

Upland's eyes flashed a little ah-ha moment. "I haven't uh, read the book, but I have heard of the Karamian Empire, sir. But it fell into disarray after a century."

"Indeed it did." He smiled at her. "Councilor Aldius was one of the hereditary leaders of the tribe before they left Kobol. He wasn't well-liked, considered an eccentric, but he was a scientific genius. Whatever calamity was affecting Kobol, it was supposedly his work which helped the tribes leave." Bannon pulled up an image on his computer sheet and slid it over. Aldius looked completely normal but a bit ugly. The few pictures which had survived showed him as fat, balding, and unshaven. "He was spared sacrifice for his efforts- the ancient Quorum voted he be spared. But he went out in a patrol craft during the exodus and claimed aliens spoke to him. They appeared as humans with voice like a siren, calm and majestic yet seductive and dangerous." He finished and waited for Upland. A short sniff was the only sound for a few long seconds.

Upland looked unconvinced. "That's it, sir?" She sounded disappointed.

Bannon shrugged. "Nothing flashy, captain, because that is it. Even as we traveled through gods know how many light years of space nothing was found. All the proof Aldius possessed was that he was gone for six extra hours with wiped computer logs. It's a little suspect. If it isn't a wiped computer log it is a 'stealth' alien ship undetectable by DRADIS or just downright fake, sloppily faked, DRADIS readings, captain. He never saw aliens. He made up a story and as much as I want to believe all we have are stories and vague sightings. Maybe there are. Space is big, captain…" he trailed off to let her finish the thought.

Upland sat quietly for a moment with crossed legs and hands resting one on top of the other of her knee.

"This could be a Cylon trap. They could be testing us to see if our DRADIS systems can detect their craft." Upland bared her teeth at the thought of the Cylons playing tricks on them. "Damned if we do or don't." She took a big sip of her water. "We have to investigate. If it's a stealth craft and we investigate they'll know. We can't risk if it's a Cylon fleet so we send a reinforced BSG. Either way the Cylons win. They'll know we can detect their craft and redesign it."

"Would the Cylons risk a shooting war?" Bannon countered.

"No." She hesitated. "But they're Cylons so I don't know. They're twisted like that."

"Maybe, captain… but I also wanted you in here for another reason. Major Amorak and Doctor Baltar have been working on a project which you'll need to be made aware of. They've been developing a program called CORA…"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**BS-41 **_**Valkyrie**_**, T15/23347**

**Approaching Piera Sector**

_Valkyrie _violently shook as a missile struck the ventral surface amidships, forward of CIC, almost at the tip of the alligator head. The hull moaned under the stress of the bombardment and shook as a piece of hull plating was ripped from the battlestar. Lights inside CIC, buried deep within the bowels of the warship, flickered from power spikes and under his feet, Commander Adama could feel heavy shells and missiles slamming into the hull.

Off to his side two medics were treating one of the navigation chiefs who'd been thrown loose from his shock harness and broke his arm on the console.

Two loud DRADIS wails gave Commander Adama less than a second to brace himself and clutch the command console- fingers and knuckles white- as three more missiles broke through the defense grid and plowed right into the starboard side of his battlestar.

At his left Colonel Tigh bellowed orders to the men, his tactical officer received them and barked out his own, and gun techs working in the 'pit' cursed and slammed their fist on the side of their control computer.

Damage report lights erupted in a spasm of blinking crimson-hued fireworks all over the console as he glanced to see the damage from the last trio of hits. The image of _Valkyrie_ began to automatically rotate on the display, showing damage to the ventral armor plating, the starboard flight pod, and engine mount three. At each point of major damage the rotating computer image stopped and flashed a red circle over the damaged hull area.

The Old Man gritted his teeth and silently snarled at his enemy.

The missiles had struck one right after the other, one each on the starboard flight pod pylons and one right smack in the middle, taking out defensive batteries. The battlestar shuttered again as hull armor buckled and an explosive decompression sent fifty square meters of hull plating blasting into that empty, death-filled void all around them.

"We just lost ammo feeds to starboard PD turrets nine through fifteen. Frak, Bill, the missiles in batteries four and five running in the red- about two dozen AM missiles before they're out." Colonel Tigh clenched his teeth and pounded at the console. "The frakers got right on top of us!"

They'd be on patrol, far beyond Colonial territory, in officially neutral space, when they'd come across a baseship and two escorts. The little destroyers, meant for nothing more than commerce raiding- or in the case of Cylons, commerce destroying- and anti-fighter/bomber roles had been vaporized by repeated hits. The battlestars had fired off a conventional salvo and nuclear chasers to spoof radiological alarms before sending in half a dozen _Stone Burners_ into the two escorts and the baseship.

The hulks of the destroyed drifted in space, shattered, and it millions of tiny pieces sped away from the battle into infinity. Each warship had been cracked right down the middle from the nuclear missiles.

Adama frowned. The anti-missile missiles had been expected to cut through Cylon ECM and deliver a hard sucker punch to those Cylon anti-ship missiles incoming. The AM system was expected to deliver a kill count almost a third higher than last generation systems. So far the anti-missile systems were barely keeping up with the old crap. As the border patrol fleet, Sixth got the goodies first. Not that it was doing that much good right now…

But the lack of improvement with the AM's was hardly his main concern. A Cylon Raider had come in and gotten a rear shot on _Pan_ with a low-yield nuclear missile which had knocked out her FTLs. The ship's DC crews were working furiously to get the jump system back online.

The Commander cursed the parameters. Throwing in curve balls was one thing but total failure of his AM systems to provide any improvements? He swiped away the complaint with a mental wave of the hand. He had a goal and by the gods he was going to set the record!

They hadn't even known the Cylons were out there. They were in the standard picket for a BSG. Half a dozen Raptors were scouting out beyond the DRADIS range of the fleet with a trailing Raptor in the rear. They'd detected nothing… so supposedly the Cylon DRADIS ranges now exceeded a brand new battlestar and a Raptor's. Adama rolled his eyes, _great, nice curveball_, he thought.

The Cylon FTLs were faster at recycling. He knew the baseship had planned to come in and get a few quick hits and jump back out. But a few lucky missiles had knocked the Cylon's FTL off line. So two more baseships had jumped in to reinforce it.

"_Pan_'s reporting FTLs back on line," the tactical officer yelled out.

"All ships are to prepare for FTL jump." Adama glared at Tigh. "Order _Pan_ to keep her FTLs cooled until final jump preparations… let's make them think we're still stuck defending her."

"Order all ships for FTL jump," Tigh echoed to the navigation officer, Captain Kessia Tavios. She relayed the orders for _Attia._

"Aye sir… FTL's spooling." The captain looked up at the XO and over to a CO who just locked eyes with her briefly. In that split second the fear was washed away and it was like Adama had imbued a part of his self-confidence into the young Captain Tavios.

Tigh turned back to Adama and frowned. "If we jump we win but-"

"I have no intention of running, old friend. Order _Gorgon_ and _Attia _to prep for FTL jump to these coordinates and get _Attia_ and _Chios _to flush their tubes on my mark for target Alpha," Adama ordered. Baseships were named by an alpha numeric designation by the Colonies since Cylons didn't assign them names. "If we do this right we can get a few of them."

Commander Adama inputted the spatial coordinates relative to his battlestar for Commander Vasic to jump her ship and her escort. The coordinates flashed green as the computer instantly calculated the jump- since it was so close- and he punched down on the red 'send' function from his console.

His XO cast a glance over to their tactical officer; a young black-haired, dark skinned man at Adama's left side and operating the tactical station at the end of the command console. The man had a mean looking gash running down the right side of his forehead and over his eyebrow.

"That'll leave them without Viper screens." Tigh countered as his eyes scanned the tactical DRADIS monitors, now knowing what the Old Man was planning. "Those three baseships out there are in mutual support positions. We have them jump their ships and they'll be out of defensive fire support-"

"She has two squadrons of reserves. And I don't plan on having them next to Alpha that long." He looked up at the DRADIS. There were nearly two hundred small Colonial craft out there. They'd committed just over two-thirds of their available Viper and Raptor support to the battle. Adama turned to Captain Alfred Papadakos. "Tactical, flush our tubes immediately and load full broadsides of jiggers. Load nuclear ordnance into turret three, four, and six. Set nuclear detonation range for tube six at five point two k-klicks." The lull in the battle let him watch his tac officer diligently and calmly relay his orders.

The deck vibrated as a dozen missiles were fired from the _Valkyrie_'s heavy turrets. The DRADIS fuzzed, almost so quickly it would have been unnoticeably to the untrained eye, as two of the missiles head cones broke apart and each ejected half a dozen EW mites, penetration aides for the real missiles, to jam Cylon DRADIS and the Toaster's anti-missile missiles.

Within seconds the high acceleration of the _Acacus_-class anti-ship missiles had crossed the debris strewn void of death between the Colonial warships and Cylon baseships. The assistant tactical officer reported direct hits for five of the ten missiles on the inner aspect of Bravo's ventral disc.

"All ships report ready for jump," Tavios reported, her fingers pressing her ear bud in close. It was loud in CIC.

_Attia_ and _Gorgon_ jumping would also mean that the rest of the reinforced BSG-41 would have to go without their fire support as well. _Valkyrie, Pan,_ and _Chios_ would lose a significant amount of their mutual defense screens and be pretty much fraked if this didn't work_. _And an FTL maneuver this close together was already difficult to pull off, let alone in pitched battle.

"Missiles loaded and ready to-" the ship rocked again.

"Fire in starboard flight pod!" the DC officer yelled above the roar. "Sealing frames-"

"Fire the nukes!" Adama ordered, fist hitting his console.

The nukes were quickly flushed from out the tubes and half a dozen triangular red blips diverted- Cylon Raider squadrons- and nuke number four was shot down barely five hundred klicks from _Valkyrie_.

Nuke three, with an optical lock on the baseship, veered up on the Y-axis before turning slightly on the Z plane as it ejected EW mites to spoof Cylon DRADIS at three hundred kilometer intervals. Five of the six Raider squadrons covering the mid air defense zone veered off to cover the three other 'nuclear missiles' which had appeared and were heading towards baseship designate Bravo. "Fire the jiggers!"

On the ventral hull, fifty meters back from where the main body of _Valkyrie_ thinned to form the head, half a dozen small hatches, barely the length of three men end-to-end, popped opened. Ejection systems pushed out two dozen small rockets. They were flat with an oval head but squat and fat in the middle and rear to hold the electronics and enough tyllium fuel for a few minutes of thrust and powered jamming.

Adama saw Vasic's Viper and Raptor gunship screens peel away from her air defense zones in early preparation for the FTL jump and to take advantage of the nukes throwing Cylon Raiders out of position, Her battlestar scored a series of sweeping successes against the Raiders and snuffed out an easy dozen Cylon attack craft in half that many seconds.

Without even ordering it- which he hadn't done on purpose- Vasic dumped a massive number of her own jiggers and he saw the symbols appearing of large drone mites ejecting from her ventral and dorsal ejection pods.

The decoys weren't active yet and with luck the Cylon DRADIS, with all the interference everyone was throwing out, wouldn't be able to detect the small, squat devices so close to _Gorgon_'s hull.

His ears were tickled with a shrill whine of a radiological alarm alerting him to an imminent impact- on the baseship. The explosion wasn't enough to rip apart the mighty Cylon capital ship but the nuke took out two dozen Raiders and a handful of the Cylon gunships and anti-ship bombers as collateral damage. The armor on the baseship would have peeled, cracked, and buckled, which could give him an opening.

Already the baseships were re-deploying Raiders to intercept the missiles _Attia_ and _Gorgon_ and _Chios_ were firing at the battered baseship and drawing them back from the battle. Fighters themselves posed no threat to a battlestar or baseship. Their primary role was shooting down attack craft which could have nukes or missiles. Only when nuclear armed could they ever hope to damage a vessel so massive and thickly armored.

The wireless crackled and DRADIS flickered as the interference from the nuclear blast temporarily blinded all the ships. With the wireless being jammed Adama opted to use pinpoint, thin, impossible to detect laser transmissions.

The wireless frequencies buzzed with static as the wireless relays attempted to cycle through frequencies, increase their own transmitter power to overwhelm the jamming, or find the sources of jamming from within the Cylon attack formation. But it was impossible to jam a com laser unless physically blocked.

"Order _Attia_ to fire at Alpha!" _Attia _fired a full broadside of four dozen ship-to-ship missiles. If he had a view screen, Adama could have seen the serene trails yellow-orange tyllium exhaust. He waited. "Jump _Gorgon_ and _Attia._" The EM interference was beginning to clear.

_Gorgon_ and _Attia _disappeared from DRADIS, jumped and everyone in CIC held their breath. As soon as the blips vanished they reappeared nearly ten k-klicks away. Instantaneously the two vessels emerged less than two kilometers from the ventral disc of the Cylon baseship as the DRADIS cleared. The old double-disc design had been 'upgraded' by Colonial analysts and even as a fifty year old design, was still a beast, a ferocious night lion of the field of battle.

The battlestar and attackstar rematerialized and unleashed hell on _Alpha_. _Attia_'s missiles slammed into _Alpha_ four seconds after the two Colonial warships begun their own attacks and _Gorgon_ began launching its reserve Vipers and Raptors. Twenty Mark V Vipers formed up with three Raptor gunships behind them and broke through the air defenses of _Alpha. _Cylons were hard to catch off guard, but the daring FTL jump so close- almost recklessly within the proximity limit- forced the Cylons to redistribute their air defense fighters to cover _Bravo_ and _Constellation_ baseships.

Defense guns on _Alpha _ripped apart two Vipers and a proximity hit tore a third to shattered pieces. Small debris fields expanded and left the white-gray tyllium fields of exploded reactors and ordnance behind. The remaining seventeen fired their missiles point blank into the defense guns 'in between' the two discs and _Gorgon_ pounded the ventral disc and _Attia_ fired everything she had into the dorsal disc with their kinetic canons.

The two warships fired missiles which arched gracefully and quickly up and down away from their turrets, maneuvered in through and under the battlestar and attackstar, and slammed ferociously into the central column holding the discs. Even as reinforced as the column was, _Alpha_ began to buckle under the sustained fire.

The Cylon's PD batteries, small railcanons, could do almost nothing to intercept the missiles. _Gorgon_ was so close her own ECM disrupted Cylon EW systems trying to block warhead locks. This close the battlestar and attackstar could use laser designators to guide the missiles in. _Alpha_ fired her PD guns at the hulls of the two ships, doing nothing as the forty millimeter rounds, meant to tear apart fighters, bombers, and missiles, did nothing but plink against the thick armor of the Colonial warships.

"Reorient fire to keep _Bravo_ and _Constellation_ off our ships." Adama kept his eyes focused and sharpened on the three DRADIS monitors above his head.

The green and red blips danced around the screen and painted a mental picture in his mind of space and the hundreds of attack craft out there in the void weaving and dodging. Raiders and Vipers alike all tried to get in through the PD fire and air defense zones and strafe the turrets or DRADIS dishes and fire their missile point black to avoid interception.

He kept one eye glued to the far left monitor which had 'zoomed in' to display a ten by ten kilometer field so he could see the specifics of the battle being waged between _Gorgon_, _Pan_, and Alpha. The middle had the entire battle and on the far right was the 'zoomed in' view of his own ships fighting back Raiders, gunships, and bombers.

The Raiders were again disoriented, or, as he mentally corrected, just out of place- Cylons didn't get 'disoriented' but they did get confused, just like humans. Adama's steely blue eyes could detect the minute wavering in their current flight paths as they hesitated between breaking off the attack and coming to the aide of their baseship or continuing to press. Unfortunately for them Adama made that decision for them.

"Standby all reserves and have all squadrons not engaged form up and annihilate the Raiders…" he glared at the DRADIS. "All ships load _Burners_ and a full load of jiggers and fire at baseship Bravo. Spool our FTLs to red… let's see if they fall for it."

Colonel Tigh's eyebrow shot up, as did his chin. "That's a risky move." He shrugged to Adama's 'no shit' face.

Tactical reported missiles loaded and all ships standing by. The Vipers not beholden to air defense roles had broke off and were chasing the Cylon parasite craft.

The countdown clock beeped at ten seconds and slowly ticked away until it flashed quickly at three seconds.

Adama smiled as hundreds of Raiders broke off and soared back to the baseships. Their whole formation was fraked and their defense zones misaligned. Even outnumbered two to one the Vipers and Raptors had greater local superiority.

"Do it."

_Valkyrie_ and her two attackstar escorts jumped and the ship shook and groaned as it disappeared and reappeared from reality all in an instant.

The Cylons were expecting the Colonials to jump and help take out _Alpha_ or _Bravo_ but they didn't jump to the aide of _Gorgon_ and _Attia_ and instead jumped right behind the massive Raider formation.

The missiles leapt out of their turrets and VTOL silos. Her point defense canons loaded flak rounds and opened up on the tightly packed Raiders.

Three squadrons of Raiders were torn to shreds by intense anti-air fire from three Colonial warships. A Raptor armed with proximity nukes flew out of _Valkyrie_'s port pod, jumped, and fired her nukes at the periphery of the Cylon formation. The brilliant flash was there an instant. And after that instant another two dozen Raiders were nothing but broken husks and scrap metal.

Wireless reports were already streaming in from _Gorgon_. The battlestar was taking casualties but _Valkyrie_'s optical telescopes were already seeing extensive secondary explosions throughout the baseship. The ventral Raider bay was reported on fire and half the turrets on _Alpha _were out of commission. The Viper and Raptor strafing on the internal aspects of the discs had already destroyed dozens of missile launchers, DRADIS fire control dishes, and other important weapon' systems.

The powerful optics mounted under the battlestar could visualize all the small pieces of debris being vaporized and smashed off the baseship.

The Old Man even noticed the slight realignment of _Gorgon_ to take out _Alpha_'s FTL drive now that her defenses were neutered.

"They're going to have to break off or risk losing _Bravo_ and _Constellation_." Tigh observed, coming to a stand next to the Old Man. "We won't get all three."

"No one ever has."

"True enough. Unless we had a _Columbia-II_ with us or another battlestar."

Baseship _Alpha_ began to slow in its maneuvering attempts and lose pace with the other two ships. More and more Raiders were being sent to aide in the ship's defense. Adama saw _Gorgon_ and _Pan _moving off and smiled as the Raiders sent to aide their metal brothers turned back and quickly accelerated away. Less than half a minute later the DRADIS blip beeped twice, turned black, and then disappeared. A small icon appeared down in the corner to signify the baseship was destroyed.

"We could get the rest, but the Cylons aren't stupid, Saul. They know when to cut their losses. Three ships is a good victory. We need to know when to call it a day." Adama looked at the combat clock; twenty-seven minutes.

The Colonel followed his eyes. "Well, we did beat it with three minutes to spare." Tigh nodded his satisfaction. "And those Cylon bastards will abandon their little toaster brothers, too." He snickered and shared it with a few of the crew. He preemptively picked up the receiver for his friend's next order.

"Let's run it out and see how many we can get." Adama smiled. He was never one to skimp out on blowing Toasters to scrap.

Baseships _Bravo_ and _Constellation_ loaded as many Raiders and gunships as they could and then jumped out as if on cue and the Raiders turned in for terminal attack runs. Without the heavy EW from the baseships and the masses of missile fire to divert the Colonial defense grid, the Raiders and other attack craft, already mauled by Adama's maneuvering were quickly neutralized with minimal casualties to the pilots.

Vipers, nimble interceptors which put Raiders to shame, tore through the dulled-blue and black craft like tissue paper and Raptor missile pods belched out their last remaining reserve missiles and reduced many more to tumbling and flaming debris. The large turrets aboard _Valkyrie_, _Attia_, and _Chios_ reloaded their own anti-fighter missiles- converted anti-ship missiles which ejected side panels and ejected out a dozen short-range, individually targeted missiles, two per Raider.

As _Gorgon_ and _Pan_ added in long range fire it was simply a slaughter. Three warships closed in front the relative front, two from the back, and Vipers and Raptors stood off, under the cover of their ships' defensive batteries, out of range of Raider canons and relatively safe from missile fire.

Adama saw the CIC dim and a red, rectangular box began floating in front of him. A five second countdown blinked down.

The timer blinked red and a buzzer, almost like a fog horn sounded. The CIC went black and disappeared. Only six of the two dozen CIC crewmen, plus Adama and Tigh, were still present, and the _Valkyrie_ CAG and squadron COs materialized, their digital avatars appearing as orange silhouettes and then filling it.

They were in a stripped down version of the CIC. A command console was in the center of the room and the bulkheads were barren gunmetal gray. One hatch was present in the rear of the room, to the backs of all the assembled officers and staffs. It was reminiscent of barren cargo hold of an old sea-going naval vessel.

"Excellent work people," Colonel Tigh stood proud as a red 'waiting… waiting…' message blinked in the air. The score was computed and displayed, "Ninety-three point one, not bad, a new best. A new high score in TG Seven by two points and in Sixth Fleet by a point…" his chin dimpled and hands flew back into a clasp behind his back, "excellent work."

The murmurs of congratulations flowed from the other few dozen officers.

"This was good work." Adama stepped out in front of them. "We were able to destroy two destroyers, one Cylon baseship and significantly damage a second and cause moderate damage to a third." He looked to the side. "It appears baseship _Bravo_ suffered extensive failures in their gravity plating, DRADIS systems, and fire control. The computer estimates that baseship would have been out of action for a minimum of four months. _Pan_ suffered the heaviest damage, _Attia_ a few blown turrets, _Valkyrie_ and _Gorgon_ moderate damage, but _Chios_," he looked up and grinned at the commanding officer of the attackstar, "almost nothing. _Chios_ had the highest scores from the simulator. Your air defense wing did outstanding. Congratulations, Colonel."

"Thank you, Commander; it was the command staff that made it possible." Colonel George Korzha brushed his brow, most likely from sweat on his physical form from the neural feedback, and nodded his appreciation.

"Uppity." Adama turned to face the CAG for BSG 41, Major Yannis 'Uppity' Costos. "You handled the Vipers and Raptors well. The attack run on the main Raider attack wave here," Commander Adama 'materialized' a display, "at the two minute and three second mark was daring. You risked being hit from the positive Y-axis by the force in front of you but split the Vipers and Raptors just long enough to keep those raiders from getting on top of you. Maneuvering like you did got the Raiders pinned against our defense grid fire and probably saved a dozen or so of your pilot's lives. That was excellent thinking, Major and you took the initiative."

"Thank you, sir." The tall and wiry CAG proudly replied.

"Alright. I'll be going over the simulation and sending evaluations to each of the participants." He looked at his 'watch', which wasn't even real in the simulation, but because it was part of his avatar, the FITS- Fleet Interface Training System- still projected it onto his wrist with proper time. "With _Gorgon_, I'm confident we could take on those three baseships, but remember that those ships were beasts during the war. Undoubtedly they've been upgraded, too, and we did have to expend powerful nuclear ordnance, however; the system also restricted how many nukes we could use. We don't know how well our new systems will stack up against the Cylons. They're tricky, believe me.

"We're jumping in three hours. We have four more jumps until we rendezvous with one of the Raptors from _Lucky Tonight_." He let his BSG senior staff see a little grin on an otherwise stoic face at the pet name the picket crew had assigned the ship. "There'll be a new simulation tomorrow afternoon. Captain Papadakos will also be contacting the other ship tactical divisions for additional planning and sim time before our final jump. If the Cylons are out here and testing some new Raiders and want to fight it out… we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I intend for us to be fully prepared." He nodded at Tigh who called the virtual room to attention. They saluted. "Dismissed."

Dozens of pairs of hands went for their temples for their FITS and in a swift motion almost everyone was gone. Their avatars gleamed a red-orange outline and then vanished with a sound which sounded like sizzling from a soda can.

Only Commander Adama, Colonel Tigh, and Commander Vasic were still present.

"Bill, you hate these things… nice to see you're technophobia is lessening." Vasic walked up and winked at him and nodded at Tigh. "Both of you, in fact."

Tigh growled. "Just because we have to use it for training…" he trailed off, looked at Adama, and reached for his temples. "And I still don't trust all the fixes or whatever they claim to have made!" Tigh added half angry, half playful. He looked over at the Old Man and with his left eye, so Vasic wouldn't see, gave the man a wink. "Well, I've got some real paper work to do and can't play Colonials and Cylons all day." He was still mumbling as his avatar derezed with a crackle.

Vasic folded her hands and snorted as the Colonel's avatar disappeared. "Does he ever change?"

"No." There was a short pause. "One of the reasons I hate these," Adama began before Vasic could say anything, "is that they're impersonal." He frowned at the fake digital setting they were in. "I don't think I told you this, but my father got addicted to these for a few years before the War." He tapped his temples. "The old holobands with their neural feedback and generative, hack, neural-cortical feedback-whatever," he waved dismissively at Vasic's entertained look as he attempted to use the proper jargon, "had him addicted. He never told me what it was he was doing in the V-World."

His spine straightened and his shoulder pushed back when he realized the ease in which he'd told her that. He'd never told anyone that before. Not even Lee or Zak knew.

The Adama men were stoics, disciplined, self-controlled. None of them, no Adama as far as he knew, had ever suffered an addiction to anything. It was a weakness. And Taurons- despite being a Caprican by birth- never let themselves lose control. Even being raised on Caprica there were Tauron traditions his father had subconsciously reinforced. Adama remembered back to when he was a kid and his dad would protest to Uncle Sam about how they were _Caprican_, not Tauron.

He had to admire his uncle for calling his dad out on a few occasions. Even during the Fifth CC Uncle Sam had been an unabashed, loyal Tauron, though he'd never betrayed his adopted planet, he hadn't helped it fight his brothers, either. The Old Man didn't much approve of that now or really, even then despite the hero worship, but did admire his uncle for his devotion to sticking to his guns. When Uncle Sam got an idea in his head on what was right or wrong…

"I didn't know, Bill… my nephew is hoping they lift more of the restrictions. They already allow wired holobands at cafes and universities, some businesses. It's only a matter of time before we get another New Cap City or fully fledged V-World. Which I was too young to play, but my dad did. He loved the game and the Mysteries club… said dodging the air battleship was the most fun he'd had. Which," she emphasized, "sounds all nice and all until you consider he said this to his family. Mom divorced him two years into the FCC, he joined the Territorial Army, and got shot, killed, defending Nyx from the Virgon Blood Lancers. He'd have probably charged headlong into the Cylons if he were still alive after they crashed V-World."

Commander Vasic walked past the commander and fiddled at the virtual command console.

"My father didn't fight." Adama looked down at the console she was working at. He moved over to the opposite side of the command console. "He hated guns, fighting, everything about the military and the old alliance system and everything having to do with rivalries between the Colonies." The Old Man rolled his eyes. "He was a lawyer… I never understood how he could fight for civil rights yet get known enforcers and murderers free and bribe judges. It was just one more thing we disagreed on." He tapped on the console. "It's not pertinent." Adama looked back up and smiled at his second in command. "But I still see the holobands as just another way for us to be dependent on technology again, leave us open to Cylon attack… our economy gets dependent on it again and they hack it and crash it."

"Maybe, but anyway… you think we're ready to fight the Cylons if it comes down to that?" She crossed over next to Adama and leaned on the console and frowned when she saw the worry in his face. He wasn't looking right at her, but she'd served with him enough to know when something was up. "Only a few of us on the command staffs have. None of our pilots have seen combat. And these," she pointed at her temple where the FIT band would be, "are good for training-"

"But not the real thing." The Old Man nodded his agreement as he finished her thought. Everyone had to grow up at some point. "We learn fast, it's in our blood."

"We do have a long history of killing each other. We're pretty good at it. Thousands of years of wars have taught us well."

"I remember the first time I went up against Cylons, Allison. They rushed us through the Academy, graduating us in five semesters instead of eight. They wanted us to keep up the naval tradition, said if we just trained pilots without training officers, we'd lose the backbone of our military." He shrugged. "For five semesters I acclimated myself to the possibility of engaging Cylons. They taught us we should think of ourselves as already dead when we burst forth from the launch tubes. That was the only way to survive; think you're already dead. We had the very real possibility. There was an actual war on. Now, it's still theory and probabilities. We _knew_ we would be fighting the Cylons.

"I can't even remember the number of times we had to rush into the bunkers in the middle of the night. On the first night of the War I saw a thousand stars flash like little fireflies up there," he pointed 'up' and his voice hushed, "and it was beautiful. But it was a Cylon fleet and the beauty ended when I realized what was happening up there, how many of us were getting killed. I watched the first _Gorgon_ break up and streak across the sky and the explosion when it hit the surface and obliterated Parthion."

"If there are Cylons out there…"

"It's a tyllium bunker fire waiting to explode, Allison. Let's just hope they don't start shooting. Or the Cylon War won't compare to what will happen."

* * *

**Picket 7-1-5, the **_**Lucky Tonight**_

**Piera Sector**

**T17/23347**

A beautiful woman with amber eyes, soft mocha-hued skin, and unnaturally blonde, obviously dyed hair hanging free slightly past the shoulders was enough of a distraction that Gaius Baltar inadvertently folded his hand. He didn't even wince at his full colors with red high, a winning set of seven cards as his mind slowly undressed the woman holding her own set of cards who was more than a little surprised at him folding.

His eyes had locked on the woman's breasts, discreetly of course, and he'd marveled at how she'd been able to make those bland and boring tan and gray tank tops so seductive. Military uniforms were hardly fashionable but somehow this one made something so uninspiring pop and shine. When she'd entered the room it was like Helios himself had pulled the suns of Cyrannus in behind her.

Almost getting caught staring he made a face, a frown, to fake his anger over folding. Of course, he could count cards. Triad was easy to manipulate for him and he never lost unless he _wanted_ to.

Yet his eyes lingered on the woman. She'd removed her tunic three hands back, to 'relax', yet he hadn't noticed… and he inwardly grinned as the light reflected off those light brown, well-toned arms of a fleet officer, and he felt his chest warm with anticipation as she leaned forward to collect her cubits.

Gaius Baltar swore she was doing this on purpose. But he didn't care. They'd worked together for months, around nine or ten, and he'd maintained a perfectly platonic relationship. 'Platonic' he amended with mental quotes because his intentions were anything but. The chase was part of the fun. And it's not like he hadn't had his fair share of women over the last nine or ten months, either. This one, tonight, would be his dessert.

He couldn't help himself if he undressed her with his eyes. It's what he and men did. Perfectly natural and perfectly acceptable and with that thought proceeded to imagine her on her back, him on top of her, and her moaning as he…

Baltar leaned back in satisfaction at his mental porn and clasped his hands tightly behind his head.

Beauty and intelligence wrapped into a package about six centimeters taller than him, petite yet athletic, seductive yet by no means easy.

At thirty-three, with two doctorates, and a small fortune already tucked away, Baltar was a self-made and self-assured man. He had no reservations about his ability to attract women. As proof, he told himself quite proudly, he'd _tried_ to keep count, but he'd lost count a few years back… and his lip physically curled into a smirk.

"What are you smirking at, doctor? I just cleaned you and everyone else here out of their cubits," the young woman had a definite hint of playfulness in her tone and obviously feigned ignorance. She knew exactly what Dr. Gaius Baltar was doing. "How many cubits is that tonight? I think maybe around… two hundred from you. Alone."

She and the other two officers at the table, the stealth Raptor pilots from _Argus_, took to laughing with her at Baltar's expense.

"I don't see what you two are laughing at." He rolled his eyes at the pilots and took another puff on his cigarette. In his defeat he savored the sweet taste of the tobacco grown near Virgon's tropical equator. "You lost just about as much as I did. She has an uncanny gift at Triad." He rocked his chin forward at the young woman, who was actually two years his senior. But _that_ hardly mattered.

"Them?" She waved at the two Raptor pilots. "Nikon here and Nepolitos don't mind losing. After a month they're about used to it." She looked to her left at Captain Antony Nikon and to her right at Lieutenant Fredrick Nepolitos and nodded at each and then toothily grinned at Baltar. "Yeah, they're definitely used to it. I think I've gotten about a month's added pay. Thank the Gods salaries aren't taxed on deployment or you two would be in a load of shit… your wife would have your balls in a vice, Nepo."

A quick hand went up as Nepolitos chugged down a shot of some cheap, clear liquor from _Lucky Tonight_'s meager stores.

"Zeus's cunt and Juno's cock… wait…" Nepolitos frowned and looked sideways, casting long glances at each end of the officer's mess. "I think I have that a bit reversed… this will probably help clear my mind a bit." He guzzled three shots worth of cheap ambrosia, gagged, coughed, and pounded his chest. "Now, let me try that again, with the major's permission?" He tilted his head.

"The major grants you permission." She tried to suppress a giggle.

"Zeus's… cu-cock and Juno's cock I am used to losing but tired of it!" He slapped the table and dozens of precious metal cubits flew into the air. A second of awkward silence and the two pilots burst into laughing while the major grinned over at Baltar. "Did I get it right, Major Amorak, sir, ma'am?"

"Hm… Zeus has a cock and his wife having a cock could present some problems, Nepo." Jessica Amorak rubbed her chin and pushed over her untouched glass of ambrosia to the obviously drunk pilot, who took it without hesitation and gulped it down. Nikon frowned at his buddy and shook his head at the major. "I really do wonder how that works. That won't work unless you think Zeus almighty goes in through the back door?"

Baltar whistled. "And here I thought you were a respectable, learned scientist, major?" He joked.

"We can corrupt anyone, Doctor!" Nikon bellowed, slapping the doctor on the side of the bicep.

"It's true." Major Amorak agreed with a bob of the head and then a yawn. She scratched the sides of her torso. "You spend enough time with sailors and the corrupting influence of these school bus drivers," she jabbed a thumb to her left and her right at each pilot, "and you'll get a mouth on you. It's a good thing I'm in the Fleet. Academia has a stick lodged firmly up their collective ass when it comes to having fun…" she narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, almost batting an eyelash, at the doctor, "though there might be some possible exceptions…"

"And we much prefer you in the Fleet, sir!" Nepolitos loudly proclaimed. He turned to Baltar using the table as support. "And you can be an honorary member!" He saluted the doctor and started fiddling with his lieutenant insignia's on his tunic which was draped over his metal chair.

"Oh… no… that's quite alright Nepo. As good a deal as that sounds I like the civilian world just fine." He grinned, stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. "The pay is just so much better." He said through pursed lips.

Nepolitos laughed, Nikon shook his head and rose.

"I think it's time to get my buddy back to his quarters and get some shut eye." He checked his watch. "Yeah, we have a patrol in seven hours, CAG briefing in six, so I gotta get him sobered up." Nikon walked around the table and patted his own pockets and cursed to the gods. "You guys got any good-nighters?"

Baltar shook his head.

Amorak dug into her pocket and produced a few individually wrapped white tablets with two thin yellow lines in the center. "How many drinks did he have? Hey Nepo how many…" she trailed off as his eyes closed and his head bobbed back. "Lightweight frak," she said through a giggle. She took out three tablets and began to unwrap one, but dropped one on the deck. "Whoops." She shrugged and tossed it in Nepo's water glass and did the same for the other two. "Three should sober him up by morning… make sure he drinks all of it." She made a face and shivered. "Just make sure he doesn't puke all over the corridor between here and my quarters."

Major Amorak could stand almost anything disgusting like blood and guts but vomit was the limit. It made her physically sick just seeing or smelling it.

"Thank you, sir." Nikon grabbed the water glass and slapped his friend back awake. "Hey Fruity… Fruity… Fruity!" Yelling the man's call sign for the third time was the charm. Nepolitos snapped back awake, confused and disoriented. "Here, drink this-" Fruity protested by sniffing it and turning his nose up at the glass "-so you're sobered up by briefing."

About as much liquid dribbled down his chin as got into his gullet. Nikon, on returning the glass to the table, scooped up his buddy and draped a drunken arm around his shoulder to support the man's weight.

"Alright then." He struggled to keep Fruity, a tall and burly weight lifter, propped up. "Major, sir, Doctor Baltar, until the next game, I bid you both goodnight." He fake bowed his head and saluted with a circling motion of his hand.

Doctor Baltar's head swiveled as he watched the two men leave. With a smirk and a grunt he set to 'work.'

"So," Baltar put on his best face and leaned forward, a drink delicately balanced between thumb and index and middle finger. He swirled it gently. "I'm not quite sure I'm ready to turn in yet. Mind explaining why we had to come out here? _Argus_ I can understand but here…" he looked around the small officer's wardroom and made a distasteful face, "they had to leave us here on this ship?"

"Hmm. You're not having fun?" She saw he clearly wasn't. "Well, you're right." Her smile was bright and her tone light. "I'm not quite ready to get to my rack, either. But why you're here, well," she shrugged, "I'll let you in on a secret." She leaned forward. "You're being paid double what you normally charge. Tax free." She poked him in the elbow.

He nodded to that. Bringing up his drink he tipped it in respect and gulped the last of the ambrosia down. "Ah. In that case then why not? It's been months and you still haven't told me why you went Fleet. You could have worked for any of the Caprican defense or technology corporations."

Baltar felt a little uneasy with how she looked at him. To him it was like she was looking at an idiot.

"Caprica? Why in the name of the Gods and all that is holy would I want to work for a Caprican company?" She shook her head, sighing. She leaned forward again, her forearm covering the pot of coin she'd acquired over the evening's gambling. "Capricans are loud, arrogant, and completely self-absorbed."

"_You_ are Caprican." Insisted Baltar. "You seem to be the exception."

She wagged a finger. "No, my father's Caprican-" she bit the inside of her lip. "But why Caprica? Prime Minister Arctus is attracting more and more tech start-ups with his low tax policies. If I did go civilian I'd go with one of them or start my own company. I'd build something, make my own fortune. It's more of a challenge than working for a company like Graystone or Vergis."

"Aquarion? Who'd want to live there, low taxes or not," Baltar looked off to a corner, shrugged a shoulder, and dangled a fresh cigarette pinched between index and middle finger, "why don't we talk about something else?"

"Why I joined the Fleet then? Well, I wanted to travel." She winked at him. "Patriotism, then."

"Oh, I really don't believe that one, Jessica… the travel bit, at least." He caught himself at the last second. The Amorak family had a lot of skeletons in their closet, were a bit selfish, egotistical, arrogant, and generally in science for the money, but he'd seen enough of Jessica to know she was not like her father or extended family. Not entirely. Maybe that was why she'd joined up? She might have been used to a lavish and pampered childhood but it's not like the Fleet didn't pay its career officers, or its star uniformed scientists, very, very well.

She tilted her head down to the left and brought her shoulder up. "Well, it's not really for you to believe, is it… _Gaius_?" The smile to accompany the shrug was simply devious.

Baltar's forehead wrinkled. "Fleet R&D has you stuck in a lab."

"True." She nodded. A strand of that dyed blonde hair swooped out from behind the ear and hung by her cheek framing her face. "But we've got labs all over the place and I have to go to them. And I give lectures at the Academy. Advanced Theoretical Physics Four Oh Seven… on occasion when time permits."

Doctor Baltar tapped the front of the cigarette down on the table twice and brushed his arm slightly forward, pushing his sleeve back from his watch. "It's getting a bit late. And if we do find Cylons we'll need to be rested in the morning." He looked at the top of her blonde head as she gathered up her cubits into a little bag.

He couldn't imagine how much she'd acquired over the past month and change. The sheer amount of coin she'd managed to win had almost everyone hesitant to play cards- any cards- against her. Straight up Pyramid, two up, six card, half-and-half, and even toss she somehow dominated. Baltar, sitting there and running his finger on the brim of his empty glass, couldn't figure out how she could have such luck. He was 'good' at cards not because he was lucky, but because he counted the deck. He considered in mundane and almost boring but he wasn't interested in cards and cubits. His dark brown eyes glittered with the desire for something, someone else.

"Well," Amorak slapped the table and pushed out her chair, "I'm ready to hit the rack."

Baltar didn't miss his cue, not him. He pushed out his chair, almost tipping it over in his haste, and bowed like an old, aristocratic gentleman and motioned to the hatch for the lady.

"You are a true gentleman, Gaius." Jessica beamed.

He heard a little hum of approval as she walked by. And he most certainly did not keep himself from staring at that ass which somehow made those ugly blue pants look downright seductive or the way she swayed her hips. Baltar knew then and there which way this was going. And he thanked the non-existent Gods that Amorak's quarters- if one could call a glorified broom closet such a thing- were personal. Meaning just her… or did it? His mental avatar winked in his mind and he stepped off, following right on her heels and then by her side.

"-and that's the way it should probably go down, the C-Bucs versus Razor Backs at the Golden Cup." Baltar concluded as he and Amorak came to a stop at her quarters. "I wouldn't just discard Aerilon so casually, Jessica."

"Cards, pyramid… my, Gaius, a little bit less hair and you could fit in the Fleet." Amorak hesitated but reached up and brushed back a strand of his brown hair.

Baltar caught her hand and looked up into her eyes. By whatever gods there were, he loved women who were taller! There was just something about them, something… his mind switched from that sharp intellect and commodious vocabulary and adopted the common cliché; exotic. His body shivered as her warm hand was firmly in his grasp.

He watched her slide her ID card through the scanner, and the magnetic locks on the hatch to her quarters click open. The sound was soft, but Baltar's senses were heightened, aroused, and it was like an explosion, a bang.

She leaned down and his eyes watched her lips. Then they diverted and he felt her warm breath on his ear.

"I don't think so." She withdrew her hand and stepped back. Winking at the stunned scientist and self-proclaimed lady's man she pushed open her hatch while still looking at him, back stepped in, and as she smiled glistening white teeth, closed it, leaving him out in the corridor wondering how the frak he just got played.

* * *

**BS-41 **_**Valkyrie**_**, Theta-19/23347**

**Piera Sector**

"Well, there she is, sir," Captain Nikon proclaimed as he turned back in his seat. He fancied a glance, discreet of course, at the major. Unfortunately he saw Baltar's hand resting on her back as she bent forward to get a view of _Valkyrie_ and the rest of BSG-41. "You ever been on an _Eryines_?" The major shook her head. "She's one of the newest battlestars in the fleet. A bit under one point one kilometers, bristling with guns and missiles, a hundred and twenty attack craft..." he whistled.

"I think I'm in Elysium, Premie," Fruity, manning the ECO, chimed in. "It's not _Argus_ but after those weeks on _Lucky_ I'll be able to stretch my legs on a true fraking warship."

"Splendid." Baltar muttered back to Fruity.

"Oh come on, Doc," Fruity called back, "this ship is like a space-going city. You'll probably be able to swindle some people out of their coin at Triad. More dupes than on _Lucky_."

Premie and Fruity shared a laugh at Baltar's expense. He'd quickly gained a reputation as unbeatable at cards unless Amorak was present. One person had jokingly, though half-seriously suggested he counted cards and that had turned off a lot of _Lucky_'s crew from playing with them. A few from _Argus_ still played, but not many.

Baltar frowned. It had hardly been a 'lucky tonight'. He'd have smiled at Jessica not brushing his hand off from between her shoulder blades, but he figured chances were she was toying with him in some capacity. Somehow he'd gone completely celibate for the last few weeks. Maybe it was to prove something to her? He shook _that_ away. Gaius Baltar didn't really prove anything to any woman- he didn't have to. He told himself that again; he didn't have to.

Whatever it was he was that was festering in some strange and dark recess of his mind made him antsy and he kept rocking back and forth on his heels and had been contracting and relaxing his calf muscles the whole Raptor ride over from the picket.

"The thing's got a few full-sized gyms, too." Fruity smiled at that. "Go work on the guns." He flexed in his flight suit. He made a little gun finger while flexing and made a 'pew pew' sound.

Premie snorted and threw in an eye roll for good measure. "You're so fraking lame."

"Now you can be a gym rat again." Amorak slugged her Triad partner on the shoulder as the Raptor slowed. "And you can take me shooting." She gave slapped Fruity on the side of the arm. "I've put off qualifying again and-"

"You suck at shooting," he finished. Premie chanced a quick look over and saw her playful glare, "Uh… sir."

"That's right."

Premie tapped a few keys and clicked into his wireless a confirmation for _Valkyrie_ to link in and let the computer guide in his Raptor-S. He leaned back and locked his gloved hands behind his helmet and interlocked his fingers.

"Easy as one-two-three," he bragged. "Major, Doctor, you all up for another Triad game tonight?"

"It's oh-nine forty…" she narrowed her eyes as the shadow from _Valkyrie_'s top half of the flight pod descended over them, "and I'll have to meet with the command staff for about an hour, then hopefully talk to the spooks… lunch… exercise…" she gave him a backhanded tap on his shoulder, "these ships have boxing rings, right?"

"Yeah, small ones, not regulation size," Premie answered. "Why, you want me to kick your ass at boxing… sir?"

The major brought her left ear down to a raised left shoulder. "I don't think that would happen." She turned to Baltar and Fruity. "You guys up for boxing this afternoon?" She knew Baltar would say no.

* * *

_**Valkyrie**_

"So, we're in for another security detail, _Basileus_?" Lieutenant Afina Stagna ask playfully as she came up beside Captain Aeilos Ophion. She leaned over and tapped his shoulder with hers.

The Marine beside her sighed and twisted at the waist. "You know, I hate it when you call me that."

"I think you told me that for the past nine years."

"I hate that title. It has no place in the military."

Stagna snorted. "If I were Leo monarchy and that wealthy-"

"You'd still be out here playing babysitter to a bunch of _eretai_." Captain Ophion nodded at the couple of knuckle draggers, discreetly of course. The _eretai_ had been the oarsmen on the very ancient triremes that once plowed the oceans of Kobol. The Marines used that as an inter-service insult which would have meant nothing to a civilian. Why call them an oarsman int he ancient tongue? It was just an attempt to goad, like all rivalries were. The sailors had their own insults for the Marines, of course. "Anyway, then you'd never have met me."

She rolled her eyes and groaned. "If that were the case I'd be on my knees thanking the gods every day."

"We had fun."

"I think _you_ had more fun on all your little 'adventures.'"

"Well that was one time I _did_ use the position."

"Bah." She dismissed his banter. "The Old Man is up there." She was in front of Ophion and flicked her eyes to the left.

"He probably just wants to see the stealth ships and whatever VIF we have to escort around the ship." He checked his watch. "At least they're on time."

"You know who it is?" She asked, rocking back on her heels and turning around as the elevator hydraulics hissed.

"Rumors say it's Ares himself." Stagna gave him a tired look and he threw up his hands in his defense. "Come on, Afina," he grinned, "they don't tell me anything. They tell me be here on the deck at X-hundred with a squad from first platoon to stand security for stealth ships. That's it. Need. To. Know."

Her emerald eyes, a rarity on Leonis, glittered as she stared at him and slowly shook her head. "Alright, sir, just wondering is all."

"Come on." He gave her a gentle nudge on the shoulder as the Raptor elevator descended. The inner hatch separating the flight deck and landing/launch deck clanged as the magnetic seals clamped the doors together. "That is a beautiful ship." He turned to an assembled party. "Alright, Marines, you know the drill; only authorized personnel are allowed near the stealth craft. ID checks, no recording device, no comp sheets, nothing."

Captain Ophion rested a hand on his side arm and nodded to the corporal. He came to attention, his heels clicking, and his right fist hit his left shoulder. The corporal followed and Ophion dropped the salute and let the corporal dismiss his men to take positions around the stealth ships.

"That is a beautiful ship," Lt. Stagna echoed. She ran a hand through her short brown hair and smirked. "So I guess I'll have responsibility for it."

"You and first platoon for the next two days then we'll switch it off. There's a half dozen of them-"

She cut him off with a patronizing look only he caught. "Yes, I know, I read the brief… I _can_ read. I guess that's the aristocrat talking down to us commoners," Stagna chuckled.

"Yeah, yeah," he waved a hand. "Raptor two has the 'dignitaries," he drew the word out, "so I'll get to those. Lieutenant."

"Captain." She was completely serious now.

They both saluted. Lieutenant Stagna went to take care of the first few Raptors while the XO of _Valkyrie_'s Marine detachment went to tend to the inevitable special needs their guests would need. He was not looking forward to this.

* * *

Commander Adama took a moment and read the orders assigning Jessica Amorak and Gaius Baltar to his command slowly and methodically. The Old Man had never met either of them but knew both by reputation. The Amorak family had a standard to live up to, and Jessica's father had been one of the best scientists during the War. He knew her by her reputation and her work on projects ranging from the stealth Raptors to weapons.

She had a new sterling record with no major disciplinary problems, minus a few fights and had received commendations from her previous commanders. She was incredibly young to be wearing the insignia's of a major and even accounting for the promotion being quite recent, was perhaps thirty months ahead of schedule.

The only thing that did stand out on the official records he had on the corner of his desk was her pistol and rifle qualifications. Simply put, they were horrible. The Fleet itself was a bit lackluster in enforcing firearms proficiency (and instructors tended to let their sailors continually retake the test until they passed) but still, it did have a standard.

Apparently she'd only passed the pistol and rifle qualifications by a combined one point.

He'd heard stories about her; her brilliance and resourcefulness and of course, her beauty. Even a married man could admire what the 'gods' created, and Adama did just that like any other man would have. Except he didn't go out of his way or make it obvious.

Adama could feel an energy around the major which almost spoke to him. He had an almost subconscious ability to judge a man or woman's character within minutes of meeting someone. Here he saw her as justifiably self-assured, but not cocky, and completely aware of her natural talents and appearance.

What he hoped for was that she'd earned everything she had; the rank and the commendations and the uniform. The uniform was especially important to him.

He could give Amorak a pass. She was at least in a Colonial uniform and here as part of her duty- no extra pay, no special allowances other than what a major would get. Baltar, looking almost bored beside her, was here for the money and money should be the last reason why one would accept such an assignment.

There were some other stories he'd heard about Amorak, unpleasant ones, ones which should not follow an officer in the Colonial Fleet around.

The way the major held herself he could see how they'd started. She was supremely confident in her abilities and not afraid to use her natural traits for her own benefit. She also didn't seem to be a woman who was afraid of getting her hands dirty.

"I'm glad to have both of you on board." Adama said as he finished reviewing the classified orders which accompanies Amorak and the classified civilian contract for Doctor Baltar. Pinching on natural paper and holding it down with the edge of his palm he took out a fountain pen and signed his name, one the left side on the line above 'Commanding Officer's Acknowledgment of Receipt of Orders' and with quick, graceful strokes, endorsed the orders and accepted responsibility for them both. "There. Welcome to the crew for the next…" he checked his watch and heard the major chuckle, "about three to five months." He leaned over his old wooden desk and shook their hands.

"So…" Baltar said, sounding slightly concerned, "I guess we can begin setting up facilities? If you don't mind, uh, Commander, I do have other contracted work and until we encounter the Cylons I would like-"

"I understand, Doctor. I've kept up with some of your research. It's impressive-" Baltar smiled and wiggled his shoulders in pride "-and some of it is truly revolutionary." Adama's lips parted and he tapped the desk. His eyes wandered from Amorak to Baltar and then off at something else inside his quarter. "But you two are here for other reasons. Not only have you two studied the Cylons and worked on the stealth ships we'll be deploying, but you're experts in computer security. I can read between the lines. If we encounter the Cylons then this will not only be a test if we can detect this supposed stealth craft but whether or not our new computer security measures can withstand Cylon infiltration techniques." His eyes narrowed. "Can they?"

He wanted to be positive the expensive civilian consultant was worth his price in coin. Major Amorak would be paid the same regardless of where she was stationed but Dr. Baltar's purse was going to be heavy after this mission.

Baltar, looking at Amorak and back at Adama, looked confused that the question would even be asked. He answered before the major could.

"Well, Commander, computer security shouldn't be an issue. Everything was redesigned, manual controls as backups, and all that, so yeah, I can't see the Cylons getting control unless they get on the ship."

"They always seem to have their ways." Adama pointed out.

"Well… yes, I suppose, but this is engineering where it is or isn't. But our networks are closed. They would need to have two things to get in; one, a backdoor in the software and two, a piece of hardware physically connected to our networks granting them wireless access." Baltar said. "Systems such as landing control, like with the Raptors," he motioned with a thumb towards the general direction of the flight pod they'd landed in, "are isolated."

"I've been working with various, um, classified projects the last few years sir, concerning our computer security," Major Amorak said, jumping in, "and as long as the computers connected to the wireless communication arrays remain un-networked to our mainframe then it will be impossible for the Cylons to affect our main systems. They could crash our wireless but the laser comms should remain unaffected since they're independent."

Adama nodded. "Then we can maintain our battle networks?"

"A closed network, sir, is impossible to hack unless they're physically aboard our ship, yes, sir." Amorak said. "Fire control, navigation, environmental computers should all work. What we do expect is for Cylon EW to be superior to our own. Same with their ECM. Unfortunately we don't _know_ so we can only suspect."

"I understand," Adama answered, "but I want you two working together and with our network security specialists to check, double-check, and triple-check. For the next week we'll be scouting and marking tyllium-rich asteroids and planetoids and laying down drones and buoys. After that we're going to go hunting for whatever it is out here. So for the next week," he pointed at them both, "I would like you two running through every system, testing it in every way imaginable, for any way the Cylons might hack in. Anything you find, inform me immediately with suggestions on how to close any holes. We haven't encountered the Cylons for thirty-five years almost, so we can only guess at this point what they're capable of.""

Doctor Baltar had to hide his annoyance as he listened to the commander. Despite the tablet computer and the collection of computer sheets on his desk he pegged Adama as one of the old school 'brute force' commanders… except 'brute force' didn't work if Cylons had better fire control, could jam DRADIS, throw off your missile locks, or jump in right on top of you. Kinetic rounds worked in close but a ship could dodge. A missile could follow when a big slug couldn't. The fleet was moving away from the emphasis on the big guns and back to missiles, away from the knife-fight engagement ranges which dominated the Cylon War and inflicted such horrendous casualties.

"All the systems have already-"

Baltar was interrupted by the major.

"Yes, sir. We'll get right on it, sir."

The doctor mentally rolled his eyes. In the end she was going to be the good little soldier. Unless the BSG had fiddled with their networks and broken all the Fleet's safety guidelines, the networks would be fine. Baltar took a chance and glared and was relieved Adama and Amorak missed it. If he was going to be tasked with doing something a child could do, he'd just go ahead in do it. Maybe he could bill it under some expense?

"There's also the other matter of why we're here, Commander, independent of just analyzing any DRADIS data if there are Cylons out there." Amorak said after a pause.

Commander Adama nodded. He'd been expecting something like this, something more. Sending one of the Fleet's up and coming scientist and a civilian contractor who was paid a small fortune for this mission had seemed like overkill. The Old Man figured there'd be some revelation coming and he prepared himself with a slow blink of the eyes and an easy stare directed towards the major.

"I figured as much."

The major offered a little lip smile as compensation for him being kept in the dark.

"Yes, sir. The other reason we're here is because we believe the Cylons may be changing… um, it might take some explaining." She saw the little glint of confusion in his deep blue eyes and paused. "As we all know the Cylon rebellion began at the Battle of Corvus during Admiral Makos's offensive. A series of signals was detected by the fleet and skipping a few events, the Cylons decided killing us would be better than killing their counterparts in the Pact." Her eyebrows quirked up and she sighed. "We don't know what happened still, but recent information can trace the probability of the origins of the Cylon rebellion to the Second Battle of Sagittaron.

"Doctor Graystone, in his unveiling of the U-87 to the CAF used the term 'artificial sentience.' But this wasn't sentience like you or me, sir." She gestured at him and herself and Baltar. "The U-87 was designed to make decisions based on available data and determine its future course of actions, plan, based on prior experiences and available variables. Rebel? No. Rebelling takes a level of thought which was theoretically impossible, even from the most advanced MCP. It was designed to take orders from its legal superiors- officers in CAF for military robots or bosses for civilian variants, provided the orders fell within the law. A Cylon could be ordered to do anything… stand on one foot for a week or rip off its own arm and it would."

Adama sat back and looked at the two with his steely eyes. "Yes, I know, major. I grew up with Cylons. I watched them in parade. I watched the Spartoi and Cylons fight during the FCC." He narrowed his eyes and looked off to the side. "It doesn't matter why they rebelled, does it, major?"

The muscles in Amorak's neck tensed. "For the purposes of why the Admiralty sent us out here, no sir."

She felt a bit shut down and stonewalled and was getting the idea the Commander didn't really like her all that much. No matter.

Since the Cylon War veterans controlled the entirety of the upper ranks of the military they tended to revolve more on the practical applications of anti-Cylon projects rather than the academic sides and such philosophical questions like 'why did they rebel?'

The claim of freedom had been tossed around, even stated by the Cylons, but they were machines, programmed. And their opening salvos in the war were so destructive that their right to 'freedom' had been considered forfeit with their systematic nuclear bombardment and murder of hundreds of millions of civilians.

"That's true," Baltar jumped in, "but the academic is pertinent for this. The old service robots could be programmed to kill. Killing by proxy still earns the death penalty even today, Commander." He as oblivious to the blank look the Commander was giving him as the scientist went into lecture mode. "There were ways around the hardware blocks preventing someone from say, programming a robot to go and rob a bank, but I'm sure you heard of a few cases of robots legally defending their owners. You heard of perhaps the most famous… the Graystone robot, Serge, killing terrorists from the STO who tried to murder the doctor and his wife during a home invasion? There was also the machine cults which sprang up as the Cylons became more popular. They believed the machines were the next step in human evolution, that we could download our conscious minds to a robotic body and live forever. They believed violence was the only means to their end."

"I do remember."

"Well, Commander, then you should also know that the Cylons and Spartoi began to improve themselves in a somewhat similar manner… they found ways around their blocks to disobey order." Baltar nodded to get a reaction from the Commander, to see if he was keeping up, but the Commander just sat that, his eyes not quite slits but subtly telling the Doctor to go on. "What we believed happened, what we know happened I should say, is that the Cylons did exactly that. When we invaded Tauron in the third year of the FCC somehow the Cylons and Spartoi began to improve each other. Doctors Graystone and Vergis used those improvements and built upon them in their own next generation of robots... not the brightest of ideas in hindsight. Some think this allowed the Cylons to achieve some sort of hive-like sentience, true sentience… uh, sapience actually through raw computing power."

"That was always theorized, Doctor."

"Theorized publicly, yes, that's absolutely correct. But privately we've discovered this to be the case. This, look…" he retrieved a comp sheet from his pocket, unfolded it and keyed up the MCP. "This is a second generation military MCP and a third." He put his forefinger on the comp sheet and flicked it, switching images. "The fourth generation MCPs allowed higher cognitive functions. One of the problems with robots was that they were very textbook. It's good, but predictable. That's why humans were needed. We couldn't let the Cylons just go off and fight without supervision. All they tended to do was smash against each other to varying degrees without guidance. They could maneuver and flank and all that but they didn't have the… uh, instincts real soldiers had for it. They'd wait for a textbook opening before attacking. They lacked the capability to take risks, Commander."

Adama tolerated the little lecture in tactics with a straight face. The problem with people who'd never fought the Cylons was that they consistently underestimated them. Simulations with a military sim-band were one thing; real Cylons had no restriction in their AI designs.

"This is the actual reason why we're here, sir. DRADIS readings can be analyzed by a computer. We're here for something else, sir." Amorak dug into her pocket and produced a black thumb drive with a gray finish. She placed it on the top of the desk, on the edge, and Adama picked it up. There was a small biometrics reader, barely wide enough for a thumb print. "That contains our classified orders, sir. But going off what Gaius said-" Adama's eyebrow flickered up at her use of the doctor's first name "-the Cylons, when they began to uniformly call themselves such, changed their MCPs. The early war was a clusterfrak for all of us, human and Cylon."

"I'm aware, major.. about it being a clusterfrak, I was there. The Cylons fumbled at the start by not destroying Admiral Makos's fleet and instead split to attack all the Colonies they could. They spread their forces too thin. When the war started none of the admirals understood why the Cylons just didn't go after the fleets and then the civilians. They tried to go after both unsuccessfully."

"Yes, sir." Amorak bobbed her head and crossing her legs, leaned forward. "They couldn't think strategically for the long term. But the MCPs which showed up in Centurions about a year to two years into the war showed remarkable improvements in their abilities to think long term, analyze variables, and _predict_. That's why the second to ninth years were some of the worse for the Colonies, sir. The Cylons, in a nutshell, got _smart. _I know it's not a popular thing to say, Commander, but they basically went from sophisticated robots governed by a sort of pseudo hive-mind to actual artificial _persons _each fully capable and independent if separated from the whole."

"This… is a basic history lesson, major," Adama pointed out, ready for the actual meat. He was tempted to snap at the two eggheads but held back. He'd already gauged this as their style and he couldn't help but notice how they complimented each other. "I'm assuming you want to tell me something more relevant before I read what's on this thumb drive?" Adama picked up the gray and black device and set it on his laptop keyboard.

"Yes, sir, apologies, what we're saying is that the Cylons continually adapt. In a nutshell if the Cylons at the end of the war had been the Cylons at the beginning of the war we would have lost within a year. They had half out military resources and trashed our industry in the opening salvos. Their improvements to their MCP and cognitive capabilities, long-term strategic planning, and intuition- yes, sir, even robots can have intuition- were not enough for them to turn the tide. We had the momentum and they couldn't turn it back. But what I'm about to say and what is on the thumb drive is classified Black Two, sir."

"Continue, major."

"After the war the government officially sought out and destroyed all MCPs and any traces of Cylons. Despite the reactivation of the holoband network AI remains strictly illegal. Programs are severely restricted in their performance capabilities and computer architecture is designed to make AI, true AI, impossible. When the Cylons left a team was assembled to study captured units. We've kept these captured units for military purposes."

"So… what you're telling me is that the military has been keeping Cylons active?" It took every bit of strength to keep his balled fists from pounding the table. "How-"

Major Amorak respectfully held up a hand. "Sir, like I said, this information is classified Black Two-"

"And you don't need to be reminded what Black Two, what breaching that means, Commander." Baltar earned a glare from the Old Man which forced Baltar to almost reflexively push back and tuck his chin into his chest defensively. "It's very serious." He tried to hide the Old Man's success at intimidation with an unneeded cryptic warning.

"I'm aware of Black Two." He looked at them both. "This is incredibly irresponsible…" he was angered but knew stating anything other than disagreement with such a program would be a waste at the moment.

He'd bring it up with Admiral Corman. If Amorak and Baltar were sent by Corman then the Admiral knew. What the Commander couldn't understand was how the Admiral, who'd himself fought through the entire war, could be so reckless. 'Capturing' and 'interrogating' Cylons during the war was a great way to get killed. One wireless network left on within range of a Cylon modem and that was it.

But he was distracted by Baltar's unneeded warning. He'd been subject to a Black Two warning a few times before. A breach of Black Two carried only one known penalty.

He'd heard a rumor, maybe a decade ago, of a lieutenant colonel who had revealed Black Two level documents, supposedly about deployment plans and the nuclear defense posture of the Colonies. No one heard from him. He vanished. His house had been cleaned out, all his belonging confiscated, and there had been no records of him having ever existed.

Officially the punishment was hanging, the same method of execution enforced throughout the Colonies. Military executions were generally carried out by firing squad.

Adama dismissed the rumor quite quickly, though he shivered at it.

"We kept them active to develop countermeasures, sir. AI can advance in leaps. If we didn't research their MCPs and AI architecture then we never could have developed CORA- Cyber Operations Redistribution Algorithm. CORA is basically a virus which can affect the Cylon's communication network and disable their unit-to-unit communications."

"Cylons are immune to computer viruses."

Baltar winced. "Not entirely true. Their MCP is due to various hardware safeties but their processing software for communication is susceptible. At least it _was_. CORA worked on the Cylons we tested it on. What it does is, uh, in non-technical terms, it lodges itself in the wireless buffers and forces more and more of the system resources to redistribute from higher cognitive functions- flying Raiders or shooting at our soldiers- to combat CORA. The Cylons can defeat it in the span of maybe fifteen to twenty minutes and it would be cleared from their system. But in that time frame we could destroy any ship we encounter."

Amorak decided to go with the non-technical example. "Sir, basically, it would be like getting a pilot piss drunk and then telling her to do an air show. The Cylons would get so bogged down, so 'out of it' that they'd basically be drunk."

"For fifteen or twenty minutes. Could they adapt?"

The major's right lip tweaked up with her right shoulder in a unsure gesture. "We don't know sir. We need a modern Cylon for a test. And my guess is, sir, that any stealth craft is going to have a fraking top model Centurion."

"So not only are we out here to find this theorized stealth craft-"

"We're here to capture a modern Cylon. And use the virus. We can tweak it; find any weaknesses in their modern hardware." Amorak smiled and leaned forward. "And if it's successful, we can use it and destroy the Cylon threat to the Colonies."

* * *

AN: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Please review. And that you to those who did and added the story to favorites/alerts thank you very much!

A Spartoi is the Tauron equivalent of a Cylon from _From Glory to Ash_. The Cylons/Spartoi were part of the Colonial military and civilian economy for nearly 30 years prior to the Cylon War in this story. The 6 year development cycle portrayed in Caprica, in my opinion, is ridiculous that the Cylons could go from prototype to some massive army capable of threatening 20 or 50 billion people (both population figures were mentioned in BSG canon). As far as _Caprica_ goes for this story and if it's canon to the story... I'll be taking concepts and characters and culture from the show, but that's about it.

I am hoping everyone likes the original characters, since a good cunk of the story will be taking place before some of the main characters got into the Fleet. But Thrace and Agathon will make appearance as will the younger Adamas.

Next chapter... contact.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**Valkyrie**

**Unexplored Space**

**I-11/23347**

Commander Adama had woken up in a sour mood seven hours earlier and a quick workout of boxing and weights in the ship's gym had done little to change his state of mind. The elusive 'Cylon stealth craft' had only been seen once in the past three weeks, or twenty-four days to be precise. Rumors had fully circulated about what the mission out to Piera Sector and beyond actually was.

The command staffs knew the mission, with the exception of CORA, and that meant a minimum of a hundred people. Couple the reinforcement of the battlestar group with _Gorgon_ and the hours of drills and simulations being run the inevitable rumors spread. And Adama was a man who'd hated, despised rumors.

He thought a quick walk through the length of the cavernous portside landing bay would ease his state of mind. No matter how busy or how swamped with paperwork, operational responsibilities, or whatever else flew across the desk of a commander responsible for five ships and ten thousand lives he always made time for a quick stroll through one of the hangers.

He generally did it twice a week, with one day the port and the next day the starboard hanger. It was a nice little change of the gunmetal gray scenery and boring catacomb of corridors which weaved through every Colonial warship.

"Afternoon, Commander," a knuckle dragger, Petty Officer second class Morin, a relatively young kid from Canceron said for a group of junior enlisted. He saluted for the group and Adama returned it.

The Old Man gave the PO a nod and a quick one-two of the work he was doing. "Keep those bird flying, petty officer," he said as he walked by.

"Yes, sir!"

Adama allowed himself a quick smile as he made his way through the jungle of machines, men, and equipment. At the far end a pair of Vipers were being loaded into the forward launch tubes and a Raptor was being taxied up to the flight deck. He threw his hands behind back and stuck his shoulder back and up until he came to his final destination.

The stealth ships had been aboard for three weeks. He'd come down to look at them once before, but today was hoping for the 'grand tour.' Drills, maneuvers, and a small engine accident on _Attia_ had distracted him each time he'd allotted time.

Last week an issue between two crewmen who'd accused the other of cheating at Triad had devolved into a nasty fist fight. Most commanders were content to just let two drunk and rowdy sailors fight it out and give each other some bruises. Men and women in the fleet weren't the sensitive bunch who needed to sit down and talk it out. If they fought they fought and then it was resolved. That was it.

Unfortunately it had spread to where one had jumped the other late at night in the aft starboard head. An engineering officer had heard the commotion and put an end to the fight and them both on report. It was a shame, but the fleet had tens of millions of personnel in it and there were always the bad apples who somehow made it through, either by intimidation, overt threats, or bribery.

That and a mast had nixed the Old Man's third attempt to have some time looking with the stealth ships. This was his fourth, and by the gods, he was going to get a little time. He was forfeiting his lunch to do it, too!

"Commander, good afternoon, sir!"

"Bulldog, how are you today."

"I'm doing well sir." The stealthstar pilot smiled back and set down a torque wrench on a tool cart. He was wearing dirtied, greasy green fatigues and tank tops. "Finally got to have a tour, sir?"

Adama nodded. "That's right." He stooped beside Bulldog; the Marines had let him pass without an ID check, and threw his hands on his hips and looked at the stealthstars. "These new models are a lot nicer than the ones I flew back in the War." He glanced over to the pilot beside him. He'd only known him since he'd come over from _Lucky Tonight_ and _Argus_, but he liked the man. He seemed to be one of those one could classify as 'good people.'

When Adama had met with the pilots from the stealth battlestar he'd seen a lot of his younger self in the man; a bit cocky, in a good, pilot way, but also with the humility to know that no matter how good a pilot one was, there was always someone better.

Bulldog gave the CO a toothy grin and back stepped until he was at the nose cone. Patting it he said, "Yes sir, these ships are beautiful. Slap some recessed missiles on and re-jigger the design a bit and you could have quite the stealth fighter, if I do say so."

The Old Man nodded to a few of the pilots working on their own ships. Colonial attack craft were designed to be low-maintenance and a lot of pilots spent their spare time (when not drinking, playing cars, or fraking) learning about their Vipers and Raptors and how to fix them from the knuckle draggers. It helped foster a professional camaraderie between the officers and enlisted mechanics.

"Alright so-" Adama was just about to ask for that tour.

"Commander Adama to CIC, Commander Adama to CIC."

Bulldog looked up at the closest PA speaker and back at the commander. He tried not to smile but trying to hide it was even worse.

Maybe next week.

* * *

As Adama made his way to CIC he returned the usual salutes as sailors braced the bulkheads either with a nod. It was his tell. He was in a bad mood. Stepping through the pressure hatch from frame zero-seven-nine into zero-eight-one he made a sharp left turn, past the tactical ready room and as the two Marine sentries to CIC saw him approach, came to attention. The one furthest away leaned in towards the hatch, close to the magnetic reader and swiped his card.

"Sir!"

"Kopka, Aias," he said with a nod.

Kopka was a tall Marine, and broad shouldered, too, and the light armor he wore aboard the battlestar only made him more of a mismatch for his shorter co-sentry, Aias, a young lady from Leonis. Adama didn't even have to stop his stride, Kopka had the access card out and already swiped with hatch open.

On entering a third Marine sentry, spaced in the right corner between DC and backup comms, called the CIC to attention, but Adama had them carry on as he marched to the command console. Colonel Tigh, Major Amorak, Captain Alfred Papadakos, Upland and Nikon along with Doctor Baltar were already clustered around the central console, each seemingly pointing at something different and in three or four separate conversations amongst themselves.

Captain Kessia Tavos was with the main group of officers around the console but her duties as navigation officer had a lieutenant and a chief hovering around her for her signature or okay on something.

Before getting half a dozen steps into the CIC he already identified a petty officer, a chief, and a lieutenant lingering off to the side- the green lieutenant and PO looking a bit nervous- who all needed his attention for something of what was undoubtedly extreme, overriding importance.

"What do we have?"

Colonel Tigh stepped to the side to make space for his friend and pointed down at the two dimensional display board. "Radiological detectors picked up a faint radiation signature. It looks like something nuclear exploded about three light years out," the Colonel grumbled.

"One of our Raptors was out patrolling here," Captain Papadakos tapped a key on the display and it zoomed in, "looking at some tyllium asteroids. We're a light year from the Raptor, sir, so that's why it didn't set off the radiological alarm on board. I've already downloaded the data to the workstations."

"This could be the Cylons." Amorak was excited.

"I don't see it as anything else," Tigh agreed with his customary glare.

"I agree with the Colonel and Major, sir," Upland said. "It could be a Cylon weapon production facility, but most likely some sort of accident. Though they could have been testing weapons."

Adama noticed Baltar was smirking a little. Amorak seemed to have picked up on it, too.

Tavos leaned in over the console and put down a tablet computer. "Sir," she addressed Adama, "I had our telescope arrays realigned to this region of space." She brought up spectrographic readings on the screen. "It looks like there's a star system out there. Three gas giants and two Kobol sized worlds, sir we'd rate as one point oh three and point ninety-seven kay gees."

"Habitable?" Tigh asked.

The navigation officer wrinkled her nose. "It is a possibility, sir. We'd need to send one of the capital ships out one of these locations I marked to be sure. If it wasn't for the Raptor detecting the radiological signature we'd never have spotted the system."

All their telescopes had been pointed about a hundred degrees away from the star system gathering data for a series of jumps the battlestar group was going to undertake over the next week in a typical search grid.

"We'll send _Chios_ and _Gorgon_ here," Adama pointed and then looked up at the young woman. She nodded. "Major Amorak, Doctor Baltar, is there anything more you can tell us from the radiological detection?"

"Not at the moment, sir," Amorak shook her head. "We have the DRADIS logs from the Raptor but Doctor Baltar and I can only determine the explosion was, of course, artificial. However, there was some, uh, strange radiation readings." She hesitated. "I'd like to be able to-"

"Something not congruent with what one would expect from the normal radiation was emitted from this nuclear explosion," Baltar elaborated. "There are exotic particles which have only been theorized to exist, Commander." He grinned. "Well, previously theorized to exist."

Amorak closed her eyes, visibly annoyed with Doctor Baltar and pissed he'd cut her off like that. It wasn't in her nature to just go out and blurt theories out and speculate out the ass. She knew exactly what 'exotic particle' he was talking about but she wanted an hour of two to check and double-check the data to be sure.

Captain Papadakos frowned and looked down at the radiological readings and thumbed through. "What particles, Doctor?" He'd been a short lived theoretical physics major but had switched to aerospace engineering- still heavy in physics but he hadn't really used it that much. Designing simulations and firing big space guns didn't require a doctorate.

"I think Doctor Baltar is referring to the _Prometheus_ particle." Amorak said dryly. She grabbed up the tablet from Papadakos and grinned. "This is kind of a long shot." She lowered the tablet to point it to Commander Adama. "These bands here could, and I stress could indicate _Prometheus_… but we've been trying to crack it for probably two centuries. These bands here I have no idea what they are. They aren't congruent with a nuclear explosion and aren't close to the particle at all. But this…" she said quietly, "even these data alone will jump our research up twenty, thirty years if it is _Prometheus_. And the other ones, if they occurred alongside _Prometheus_…" she shook her head, "I don't know. It's big."

Tigh leaned forward on the console and looked first to Adama and then Amorak and Baltar. "Frak, Bill, if the Cylons have that it could be a game changer."

Everyone in the military knew what the particle was. It was their 'holy' of holies, _the _particle which could change everything. Theorized by Doctors Anja Corith and Frank Travko almost two centuries ago it was a particle with applications which could revolutionize everything from energy production to communications.

"If the Cylons have discovered how to harness _Prometheus_ then we may have to take action, sir," Captain Upland strongly suggested. Adama shot her a look. FID had some authority over ship commanders but the intelligence organization was quite reluctant to exercise such authority. "We could send back _Gorgon_ to the Colonies and redline her FTLs if we had to, sir."

"We'll come to that if we have to." Adama put up a hand. "Doctor Baltar, Major, can you tell us anything more?"

Baltar nodded and wagged a finger. "This would give them a communication and data transmission capability we've never been able to reach, Commander. We've only been about to get wireless in real time up to about a half dozen SU depending on the transmitter, but this…even with obscene energy requirements to have instantaneous communications across-"

"A virtually infinite distance would be a fantastic development," Amorak finished with her turn to interrupt him. She looked over at Adama and Tigh. "It would be a game changer, sirs, and a fraking big one. The level of coordination Cylons could achieve and their ability to share a battle connection during a fight would be extreme."

"It would revolutionize science." Baltar sounded excited and borderline naïve to the problem of the Cylons having _Prometheus_. Even if the experiment had been a failure the preponderance of evidence pointed to them having created the particle and in necessary quantity for it to be detectable.

Tigh ran a hand through his thinning white hair. "If it could be adapted to a ship the Cylons would be able to communicate across Cyrannus, Helios, and the surrounding systems in real time, for a coordinated assault on the Colonies." He had to take the most pessimistic outlook. "With that much coordination they could wipe out our Colonies within a week, a month tops."

The Colonel looked over to the FID officer for her support as well.

"I would concur with the Colonel, Commander." Upland hesitated for a moment but after nodding to herself, continued. "FID has performed a number of simulations based on numerous variables. One such variable is real time communication across our sphere of colonized and militarized space. We don't know the exact, actual disposition of Cylon forces. From our most pessimistic to most optimistic conclusions based on numerous variables the Cylons could achieve a complete victory in under two weeks to as little as three months, sir."

"They could conquer the Colonies-"

Upland interrupted Papadakos. "No, captain, not conquer. Those simulations were for complete annihilation. FID believe the next war- should there be one- would only end with the complete annihilation of the other." She saw some of the surprise, mixed with horror in a few of their eyes. "Our technology and jump engine capabilities have increased the lethality of our warships many times over. A full, wide front first strike by either side to the other would be devastating."

Commander Adama nodded to them all but remained calm. He squinted down at the console and the DRADIS logs and the navigational displays. "We can't jump to any conclusions yet," he said quietly, "but we need to investigate. _Chios_ and _Gorgon_ will make their jumps and then report back if the planet is habitable or if they find anything."

"The explosion could have been some…" Papadakos shrugged, "tyllium energizer overload then. I studied the _Prometheus_ particle a little bit at the Academy. I remember reading a paper from Colonel Vas about some energizer being directly linked to an FTL core to get past the energy requirement and create the necessary environment for the particle."

"You're most likely correct, captain," Amorak agreed. Something wasn't sitting right with her and she was fidgeting and itching her index finger with her thumb. "I read that same article, from Ap. U., but it was a dead end." She looked at a few confused faces from the non-scientists. Amorak turned to Commander Adama. "Sir, if the Cylons are experimenting out there then we need to destroy whatever it is immediately."

Her voice was level but there was an underlying urgency. A few of the officers were surprised at her audacity. A little attack, a skirmish here or there, a destroyed Viper or some destroyed Raiders were all pinpricks easily forgettable. In the realm of Colonial-Cylon (non) relations something small could be swept under the metaphorical rug. But an outright attack, a massive attack by two battlestars, three attackstars, and hundreds of fighters would be an act of provocation too large for the Cylons to ignore.

Captain Tavios blinked. "That… would start a war."

Even Colonel Tigh was a little stunned.

"We can decide what to do after a recon mission," Adama said before anyone else could say anything more. His tone was clear he wanted the topic dropped for the moment.

"They may not even be there anymore," Captain Papadakos said and continued, "Because they'd know there was a nuclear explosion we could detect. And if that stealth craft was keeping tabs on our border pickets…"

The jaw muscles under Colonel Tigh's cheeks tensed. "Fraking Cylons overreached. Their little stealth ship, if it was a stealth ship got them noticed. I think with us our here they would have high tailed it out of here."

"Then they would have vacated." Adama finished. Amorak was about to protest. "The Cylons did that during the war. They build everything important mobile. Believe me…" he looked to the side and towards the deck, "I know." He focused back on her. "If you can get in closer would that help… learning about this particle?" He motioned to the tablet computer with the DRADIS data. "And what the Cylons were up to."

"It-"

Amorak put up a hand to stop Baltar from speaking.

"Yes, sir, it would. There's a lot of reasons why we haven't been able to create, let alone harness _Prometheus_ particles, sir, and that's because they also produce intense spatial instability. And we've never even gotten to that step… but the particle would create a phenomenon in space- again, purely theorized, sir- of stable… uh," the left corner of her lip cracked up, "of stable instability, in a nutshell." She frowned. "If that makes sense and believe me, I know how it sounds, but if we can get in close then we can see this for ourselves, get some DRADIS readings and maybe even image whatever it is they are using, or in this case, used."

"And you can do this in a Raptor on site?" He turned to Nikon. "Without detection."

"Yes, sir, if prior recons over the line are any indication I believe I could get us in as close as possible. As long as no Cylon is looking at that particular place we jump from sir…" he leaned over the table and nodded as his finger traced a course. "I could jump a Raptor-S to here, to the edge of the system and then do a low powered jump to close in."

Major Amorak straightened just a little bit, looked at the table, over to Baltar- who was almost doe eyed with glee at the prospect of discovery- and back to Adama. "The closer we get the better. If there's anything abnormal we can calibrate DRADIS, manipulate our sensors it if we have to. Doctor Baltar and I would be the most qualified to undertake such a mission. We may only get one shot at this, sir."

"Captain Upland?" Adama asked.

The officer threw her hands behind her back. "I would voice my support of such a reconnaissance mission, sir. The more we find out the more information we would have in order to come to a conclusion for our next course of action."

"Very well, major. Once _Chios_ and _Gorgon_ return with more information about the system, and if we don't see any signs of Cylons between us and the source of the explosion, you can have your expedition."

* * *

**Planetary Body 76-34Alpha**

**Thirty Hours Later**

Major Jessica Amorak wiped the sweat and grime from her face and felt her chest rise and fall as she took slow, deep breaths. Her chest ached with every labored breathe. Everything around her was dark.

She realized it wasn't truly dark. Her eyes were sealed shut and she was lying in a corner of the Raptor, facing the bulkhead. Her helmet faceplate was covered in gunk and gear. Slowly she opened her eyes as she heard the faint sound of static and felt warm sparks shower down through a tear in her flight suit and knocked everything from her helmet. Frantically she unhooked it and tossed it away from her.

An alarm whooped to a near deafening level until some circuit fizzled out and the alarm blared once again in protest then fell silent. She heard strings of curses only a sailor could assemble; with her eyes still closed she knew her pilot was alive. She found some strength to open them, slowly, and they stung as the smoke in the cabin burned them. Her hand was a mess; the normally olive drab and black glove was torn and covered in a deep, crimson red liquid which dripped onto her chest as she held her hand over her, afraid to move.

Her whole body screamed in agony. Everything hurt, everything was bruised, shaken, battered. This wasn't what she was meant to do and she cursed herself for pretending to play the fraking soldier when she knew she wasn't a fraking soldier.

She knew her place was in the lab but she'd bullfraked her way onto this mission and pulled Baltar- was he even alive?- with her. It was an adventure, right? She'd find some secret Cylon compound here and the fraking stealth ship and the source of the holiest of holy particles of Colonial theoretical physics… and then what? She rolled over onto her side, groaning as she rolled onto some jagged piece of something.

Something fought its way out of her. It might have been her military training or her stubborn desire to prove to the world she was tough as nails, she didn't know and right then it didn't matter. She unbuckled the glove from its airtight lock and ripping the glove off and tossed it away from her.

Groaning, she rolled on her side and felt the hard metal of the cabin deck press into her face. It felt cool and hot and a thousand different sensations rushed through her body as adrenaline began rebooting her body. Her eyes had slammed shut as she rolled but they steadily fluttered open and then shot wide as she heard the pain cries someone and yelling form someone else.

Amorak looked at the grime she wiped from her face, a few shades darker than her skin and shook her head to clear away the grogginess. She winced as she tried getting up and rubbed her temples as her vision went from blurry, to sort of blurry, to the and finally her vision seemed to settle and she focused on what was around her.

"Gods damn… what… happened to us happened up there?" She pulled herself up by some cargo netting only to jostle loose a container which was a centimeter from smacking her head. It seemed to stop mid-air and she slowly moved out from her defensive posture, hands protecting her face, and cautiously eyed the silvery box and saw a pair of strong hands holding it.

Amorak grappled on the cargo netting and pulled herself forward and up.

"Captain… thank the gods…" she let out a breath of complete relief and rubbed the grime from her face. He threw the box and extended a hand and pulled her up. She brushed herself off and looked over the cabin. She saw the captain in his helmet and she remembered going for hers… after their Raptor had been shot down… "Oh Gods…" she whispered, "Who the frak shot us down?"

She glanced down at the small flightcomp display on her flight suit's left forearm. The smart interactive textiles of her flight suit, interlaced with sensors, were somehow all green. She didn't feel wounded, except for the bruises, had no fractures… her eyes quickly scanned the read outs and she thanked her house gods for their protection.

Captain Antony Nikon shook his head and muttered something under his breath. The pilot looked alright but the way he was leaning down next to Doctor Baltar showed he was guarding his flank. Nikon was gripping the flightcomp display on Baltar's left forearm.

"It's busted." He reported, moving his fingers to Baltar's wrist for a pulse.

Amorak's stomach turned as the smells of the crash tore through her nostrils. The smell of burned skin on the doctor, some tinged hair, and a noxious, repugnant smell almost like burning plastic caused her to dry heave, bend over, and cough it out.

"He's alive," the gruff Raptor pilot informed her while doing a quick visual inspection. He looked up at her and flicked off his helmet lights and popped it off with a snap-hiss. "Can you hand me the med kit, sir?" He asked. "I don't see anything wrong with him… sir… could you check the instruments in the cockpit, see if we can figure out where the frak we crashed?" The last request barely made it out before his voice turned hoarse and he started violently coughing. "It looks like Baltar's injured…"

"What about-"

"He's dead. Fruity's dead."

Amorak looked towards the cockpit and saw the side of his head. He was sitting perfectly still, and through the thing gray smoke she could see the red crimson blood dripping from behind his ears and onto his olive-drab flight suit. Rubbing her eyes she fought back a tear for her friend, swallowed and sucked it a breath and reached for the first aide kit.

Her fingers curled around the handle, barely gripping it and not expecting it to be so heavy, Amorak almost dropped it when she pulled it loose from its harness.

She stepped out of the way and let Nikon work. "You're trained for this?"

"I did AMER…" he paused and looked up, "and a refresher course… but…" he grabbed Baltar's wrist and fiddled with the flightcomp, maybe it would somehow have magically fixed itself by now. "I think he has internal bleeding… hand me that." He pointed at a small black device, a portable ultrasound.

The Major nodded and handed him a portable ultrasound- to cauterize internally lacerated blood vessels- and stood back. Working in the lab she did have the Advanced Medical Emergency Response training the Raptor pilots, especially Raptor-S pilots, had but hadn't taken a refresher course in the last eighteen months. The first aide equipment was designed to be used with minimal training but she stood back, awkwardly fiddling with her hands, as she stood stooped over Baltar.

Nikon stopped and after hanging his head looked up at her and towards the cockpit. He couldn't have her lingering back here and as much as he didn't want her to see Fruity's burned face- she didn't sign up for this- he needed her in the cockpit.

"Can you check the cockpit, see if we can fly?" Nikon asked as he looked up and then stripped off Baltar's flight suit, to the waist, and lifted up his gray and brown tank tops. There was black and blue bruising running from the scientist's armpit almost to his waist.

The major yanked open an access panel which had been smoking and felt her shoulders slump as the hopelessness of their situation was made visible. Even if the Raptor was in condition to fly the entire guidance and control system was shot.

She could _build_ a damn Raptor with enough parts and time but she couldn't will melted circuits and smashed electronics back to working order.

Amorak leaned back on the seat and rubbed the back of her neck with her good hand. She worked her hand over and then under the stiff metal collar before grimacing and then fiddling with the locking mechanism and tossing it off to the floor. Moving slowly to the cockpit she finally let herself fall into the pilot's seat. Her hand knocked some knob, driving the hard plastic between the bones of her hand, she winced and recoiled. Rubbing her hand she looked over the busted control panels.

Swallowing hard she found the courage to look over at Fruity. He was slumped to the side, his head bent and resting on the Raptor's frame. He was blue already. Slowly she looked around the cockpit and then leaned over to him. Carefully she grabbed his chin and opened his mouth…

"I already did it, sir.... we always keep few obol's under the central console, in the netting." Nikon pointed.

She stopped and looked at Nikon and their eyes met for a short, too short, second. There was enough pain in his eyes for them both. She'd only known Fruity a few months but Fruity and Premie had been friends for almost two years, flying buddies, pilot and ECO.

Jessica closed Fruity's mouth and she saw the faint glitter of a polished obol, a coin, to pay for the boatman. She looked out past the cracked cockpit and the gray smoke waffling up from the melted nose of the Raptor. There was a green and blue world outside with a forest full of trees and tall grass and colorful flowers. Jessica was grateful that at least his body could be put to rest on such a beautiful planet rather than atomized by an explosion… they had crashed in a meadow, on the edge of that forest.

Then she remembered. They'd been investigating the radiation signature. The Raptor had come in slow and done a low-powered FTL jump into high orbit over the planet. They saw a debris field floating in orbit, a massive field, maybe eighty or ninety kilometers with a large ship which looked distinctly like a pyramid straight from Virgon. It had been dotted with craters and clearly blown apart and had just been floating there, lifeless. They'd investigated and moved in slowly and somehow had been jumped. The next thing she realized they'd crashed.

She pawed at the controls- knowing they wouldn't work but had to try- and nothing happened. Leaning down in her seat she tried found the button for the backup batteries and… nothing. She closed her eyes and groaned in defeat then reoriented herself and cranked the little hand powered device which would produce about ten minutes of electricity for the control board… she smiled in reluctant triumph when the console beeped to life.

"OH FRAK OH GODS!"

The major jumped at the outburst and swirled around and Baltar was screaming and grabbing at Captain Nikon's arms, trying to push him away, pull him in, push him away, and then he tried to scurry to the back of the cabin. The large pilot grabbed both of Baltar's arms and pinned him to the deck.

"Doctor Baltar, remain calm," Nikon said in a voice which was completely calm, with no fear, no apprehension. Nikon sounded totally separated from his emotions as his training kicked into overdrive at the sight of a panicking civilian. "How do you feel? How is your head?"

The scientist blinked at him and remained perfectly still. A look of dread washed over him and he tried to prop himself on his elbows, only to fall back down from the pain.

"Oh gods…" he whined. "I don't know!" He flung up his left arm and hit the flightcomp display with his right.

"Anything up there, sir?" Nikon shouted over his shoulder at Amorak. "Oh… does this-" he pressed on the bruised area very gently.

"-hurt! Frak!" Baltar yelled. "Of course it hurts!" he scowled at the man and silently cursed him as a fraking meathead idiot.

"Hold still…" Nikon reached into the med kit, unzipped a small duffel and he took out and grabbed a small self-injecting battlefield syringe and pressed it onto Baltar's leg. "You um, you've got internal bleeding…" His hands worked quickly to tenderly inspect the injured scientist. "Hold on…" Nikon searched for something and smiled. "Hold still… this will help the ultrasound to coagulate the blo… damnit, hold still," he held Baltar down, "I need to inject you at the bruise site… this will hurt but you might bleed inside before we get rescued…" Nikon waited until the doe-eyed, scared-as-all-frak scientist acquiesced, after a brief and fierce protest, as his own death was certain if he didn't comply. "Alright, let's do this."

Nikon held the self-injecting syringe, which was filled with a room-temperature coagulant formula Tauron had developed during its civil war. Battlefield bleeding resulted in a significant number of deaths, especially with the deadly weapons the Colonies used to fight each other, before wounded soldiers could get to aid stations and field hospitals. The coagulants would work, temporarily, and anything more than two shots within twelve hours could send the soldier into uncontrolled disseminated micro-coagulation which would, ironically, lead to even _more_ bleeding and then death.

Premie prayed Baltar's internal bleeding wasn't as bad as he thought it could be, but there was no way to be sure. The Mark I Eyeball wasn't very effective at looking through objects. The Raptor-S was also only equipped with basic medical supplies.

He let Baltar grab his arm and as he brought the syringe closer Baltar spontaneously grimace, winced, and dug his fingers into Nikon arm until he felt like the scientist would claw it off. Slowly, and with a whimpering scientist, his arm was released.

"Captain? Captain!" Amorak shouted from the cockpit. "Get up here!"

Nikon rushed up. "What do you have, sir?" Reflexively he started tapping at the DRADIS but the whole system was shot. She grabbed his shoulder and he was close to shouting but saw her pointing. The captain looked up into the sky and saw three ships, two looked like fighters and one like some weird… triangular pyramid shaped thing, slowly moving towards them. "Oh frak."

The fighter engines rumbled overhead like some sort of jet engine mixed with a race car, producing a strange hard mechanical whine.

"We gotta get out of here." He scurried back to the cabin and stopped to the side of the ECO console. He pawed in a code for the small arms locker pressed between the console and the rear bulkhead. The Raptor-S, while about the same size as the standard Raptor III's, even with added electronics, had more room for storage because it eliminated seating. "Here, major," he pointed at the medkit, "grab the medkit. The camo backpacks, grab those they have survival kits." He also tossed down a small camo fold-out stretcher for Baltar, just in case.

Major Amorak nodded and dutifully did what she was told and tossed in the med kit into a backpack and slipped it over her shoulders, tightening it until she felt the tip of the pack press against the back of her neck.

There were two thoughts circulating furiously through Nikon' mind. The first was to make sure the eggheads were alright. They were the most valuable and as their pilot it was his duty to protect them. Second, the fighters that had just buzzed the crash site looked awfully similar to the one that had shot at them in space. He hadn't been able to get a good look due to it coming from behind, but he'd gotten a glimpse when the Raptor had spun on its nose and corkscrewed for nearly a hundred kilometers before he'd been able to get it back for a 'controlled crash.' And it just didn't _feel_ right, either.

His gut had saved him more than once before and by gods he was going to listen to it again. _It does have a proven record_, he thought as he activated a small self-destruct on the side of the ECO console. The electronics were classified and as soon as they left incendiaries would melt everything of worth on the Raptor-S to molten, glowing orange slag.

Just as he was opening the arms locker some distant and massive explosion shook the ground and rattled the Raptor, throwing Jessica into his arms and pinning him against the bulk head. Nikon saw a pillar of black smoke follow and then consume an orange-red fireball in the distance. It was hard to tell, but whatever had just exploded had been both huge and far away, maybe five or so kilometers.

"What was that?" Baltar asked, now struggling to stand with Amorak's help.

"I have no idea," Nikon whispered, staring at the distant smoke, the major still in his arms. "Oh, sorry, sir," he sounded sheepish and helped her off him.

Captain Nikon frowned and turned back to the arms locker. There were two Tanis AP-9 battle rifles and two spare pistols with magazines. He handed a pistol and belt to Amorak and he grabbed the AP-9s and shoved everything he could into a duffel backpack and threw it over his shoulder and put an arm around Baltar to take him from Amorak and was grateful Baltar could walk and didn't need the stretcher. He slipped it over his shoulder just in case.

"We were scheduled for a four hour recon… and we've only been gone twenty-nine minutes," he checked his watch. "I'm going to set the demo charges, blow and melt the equipment to slag… we make for the tree line. Don't stop until you get to the trees. Understand?"

"Wait!" Amorak threw up her hands and shoved the equipment back to Nikon. She rushed up to the cockpit, on the pilot's side and yanked out a small hard drive. "We can't leave without the DRADIS logs."

"Ready now?" Nikon hissed, curtly shoving a battle rifle and a backpack back to the major.

Amorak nodded as she clipped and secured the pistol belt. She slowed her breathing. Nikon nodded back, gripped Baltar firmly around the waste, and hit the hatch release.

* * *

AN: Thanks to all those who reviewed/added the story to favorites/alerts. I appreciate any feedback so let me know what ya thought. Since this was a short chapter the next one will be up shortly (3 to 5 days).

The Colonial dating system I am currently using is following the first twelve letters of the Greek alphabet for the time being.

One guess as to who caused the big explosion at the end of the chapter. ;-)


	5. Chapter 5

AN: I tried a little something different with the story description. I thought posting a sort of 'teaser' for the chapter being posted would be good/better/different? Let me know if it works. Please enjoy!

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**Chapter Five**

**Planetary Body 76-34Alpha**

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The sky overhead was blue, with barely a cloud in the sky, and a sun beating down and warming the ground. In the shade of massive trees, right at the point where the forest broke and the meadow began, Captain Nikon lay on his belly curiously observing what was happening around the smoking and smoldering vessel that had once been his Raptor-S. He could even see the melted slag of twisted electronic console inside the cabin from his position and smirked. Whoever the frak these fraking fraks were they weren't going to get anything from there.

Denying the enemy an intelligence gold mine was about his only victory for today.

He realized he may not even be rescued. It all depended on what was out there, up in space, and what these people had for ground assets. He knew Commander Adama wouldn't leave a man behind but he wouldn't want dozens of pilots killed trying to rescue him or Amorak or Baltar, no matter how important to the War Ministry those two were.

Premie's nose wrinkled. "Frak me," he muttered sourly under his breath and swiping some sweat from under his nose used his elbows to scoot to the left. He pulled himself forward a little bit, getting dirt under his fingernails and into the cuff of his flight suit.

With his field glasses he was watching them and occasionally ducking back down to the ground whenever one of the fraks glanced his way. He had no idea if they had IR field glasses or anything which might be able to spot him.

He knew he was too far to be seen with the old Mark One Eyeball and it didn't look like they had any equipment save for those big stick things the group was carrying but he needed to be sure.

Still… he closed his eyes and spun around onto his back as he tried to get a grip on what he was seeing. He flicked a weird spider-like insect off his chest and shivered. He enjoyed flying though and living in space because there weren't a lot of bugs and barely any spiders- he hated spiders- on space ships.

Preemie licked his lips and swallowed, counted to three, and turned back on his stomach to resume observing the group standing around and jerking off around his Raptor. They'd moved fairly quickly. He hadn't seen their weird ship land but by the time he'd set Baltar and Amorak down a good thirty meters into the tree line, made sure those two were okay and returned they'd already set up a loose perimeter around the Raptor.

One of them put out a hand and quickly drew it back, shaking it and pacing back and forth. Nikon chuckled softly. The stupid frak had burned himself on the hot metal.

Gods, he wished Raptors came with booby traps. A little present made up of a nice little brown brick of N-9 explosives would incinerate the Raptor and blast everything for a hundred meters. That would have left a nice little crater…

"Wishful thinking," he muttered under his breath.

These people, whoever they were, numbered too many to fight. That was about the only thing he was sure about right now; he wasn't going to fight. He was going to sit and watch and rely on his training to get himself and the two scientists out of here. He wanted to make sure Jessica was safe, especially her because if anything happened… and before he could linger too long on those thoughts he looked over and patted the battle rifle, a bull pup design, resting serenely in a bed of moss beside him.

He was an okay shot from this distance and could probably get three kills, maybe four, before they figured out where he was shooting from. Everyone trained to engage targets at range… that was basically the best chance one had of fighting Cylons in the wide open and living to tell about it.

He blinked that distracting thought away and shook his head clear to focus. These weren't Cylons unless they were using humans now. That was too ridiculous a thought to legitimately entertain. The obvious implication of finding humans out this far from the Colonies wasn't lost on him and he'd already made a wide range of assumptions as to their origin but nothing he saw really made all that sense.

The armor looked a bit like old Virgon and some Scorpion pieces, with maybe a little bit of influence from some Gemenese Vestian Era design motifs. Whatever it was their armor looked more stylized than practical. It seemed incredibly uncomfortable too, especially the piece wrapping around the neck line and under the chin.

Somehow it fit in with their ship, which seemed for Nikon to be more style than substance. The triangular hump or whatever it was visible above the Raptor's DRADIS and sensor dome seemed like wasted space. But if it housed electronic equipment… he shrugged. _That's not really here or now, focus_, he thought.

Still lying flat on his belly in the dirt he slowly raised the field glasses again and clicked in the zoom function. He was out about three hundred meters from the Raptor and half a dozen big, burly men in ridiculous over-armored get ups holding some big sticks, brown colored staffs of some kind, and had descended upon the smoldering Raptor. That hadn't been all of them, not by a long shot. His glasses focused on the heat signatures of ten more in the forest, concealed by the thick trees and overgrowth. There were also four or so who'd set up a perimeter on the edge of the forest at the nine o-clock position to the nose of the Raptor.

"Sneaky bastards."

From the brief glimpse of the ship that had shot him down in orbit he knew these fraks were the people who'd done it. Their fighters were downright strange, too, but seemed to fit with the people down there. The fighter main body was oblong, oval, with a triangular cockpit. There were two prongs, Nikon assumed canon mounts of some kind, on the edge of the fuselage. And the wings swept forward at a slight, almost lazy angle, and the design seemed to mimic the appearance of a bird of prey's wing.

They weren't going to find much. The inside had been gutted, melted by the incendiaries and the electronics, too. It was so hot the fire would also have burned Fruity's body. He swore as soon as he made it back to the ship he'd have a proper burial ceremony for his friend. It was important that his soul be allowed to rest in the Underworld.

As long as the rites were tended to, as soon as possible (which was left purposefully ambiguous by the religious Powers That Be) then the soul would travel to the Underworld. The coins in the eyes or mouth would also hasten the journey and serve as a sort of a 'down payment' to let the soul into Elysium on the condition the rites be performed later.

Nikon let out a low, borderline silent guttural groan and he slowly elbowed his way away from the log he was using as cover, stashed the glasses in his flight suit utility pocket, grabbed his dull Tanis AP-9, brushed off a few leaves and some dirt and crouch walked quickly back thirty meters into the thicker brush. He almost cut his cheek on a low lying branch but made sure to not step on any twigs or break anything. Amorak had a rifle, too, and she was jittery. The last thing he needed was her getting jumpy and blowing a hole through his chest.

Major Amorak had been watching him scoot forward and they made brief eye contact. It was enough for Nikon to see how scared she was.

"How is he?" Nikon whispered, nodding at Baltar. The scientist was propped up against a tree. He looked 'better' but was sweating and his breathing was shallow. He was awake, which was good but his dark brown eyes were almost vacant. "Is he lucid?"

"Ye… yes," the doctor groaned. "I am quite lucid, Mr. Nikon, thank you."

"That's good." He ruffled his hands in the survival bag and slapped a wrist-watch looking device on the doctor's wrist. "That's a wireless. It's passive now but if we get separated it'll light up if the SAR Raptor arrives and sends out a signal. You know how to work it, right?" Baltar nodded. He tossed one to Amorak. He'd already slapped his own on before he went to spy on the soldiers probing his Raptor.

"You picked up any wireless transmissions?" Amorak picked at the little wireless device.

"I picked up some gibberish on radio frequencies and… hm, some more gibberish on the wireless channels. Whatever language it is, it doesn't sound familiar." He clicked his wireless receiver on low and held it to Amorak. After a second she shrugged. "Frak all if I can understand it, sir."

Nikon moved a little closer to the scientist and plopped down next to her. "Well, I'll be honest; we're in a fraked up position. We're still hours from even being reported missing and expect another thirty minutes after _that_ before they start worrying… expect an SAR in..." He looked up worriedly from where he'd just come from and didn't bother to finish his sentence. Jessica could do the simple addition.

"I thought having _Gorgon_ in the group would have been good luck," Amorak mused, sighing, "guess not." She smiled at the ground and threw a little twig she'd been playing with.

"Here." Nikon dug into his pocket and flipped her a coin. She missed the coin and it sailed by her hand by a good half dozen centimeters. "Yeah, I can see why you're not a good shot." She sneered which forced him to snicker at her embarrassment as she scrambled to pick it up and pretend her miss never happened. "It's a dolphin; my parents gave it to me a few years ago… its good luck-"

"On Picon and Tauron," she finished for him. "Your parents?"

"Mother's from Picon." He tapped his thigh with his fingers. "We should expect a SAR in four hours."

"Not soon enough," Amorak joked. Nikon shared a chuckle with her. "Is Fruity…?"

"His body would have burned up in the incendiaries. The whole Raptor is slag, basically." He clicked his tongue. "I figure they'll need at least an hour after we're overdue before they realize something is up and launch a rescue. Sorry."

The major gave him a look then shook her head. "It's not your fault, Premie, no." she closed her eyes. "I pushed for this. I wanted to get close." She hesitated but thinking Nikon wasn't looking, wiped her far eye. "It was stupid. We're so far from the Colonies in some frak ass end of nowhere and I saw this…" she shrugged, "and thought, I don't know, I didn't think… I was selfish, Premie."

Captain Nikon silently winced as she stared off into nothing and her eyes darkened and unfocused. He wasn't much of an emotional type of guy or anything, but it seemed like she could use a hug, as lame as it sounded to him. "It wasn't your fault, either, major. Sir. We came to investigate. We had no idea anyone was here, really. We suspected. _No one_ is at fault for this…" he wanted to say her name, "Major. We had to investigate… there are always these risks and Fruity knew it. He signed up for it and did his duty."

"Duty…" she repeated, turning her head away.

She sniffled and he leaned his shoulder gently into hers, smiling at her and just trying to comfort her without breaking that senior officer-junior officer dynamic. He clenched his hand by his leg and kept himself from touching her with anything more than his shoulder.

"So how many are out there?" The major asked, scooting a bit closer next to him and resting her head on a hard, lichen covered tree trunk. It was dangerously close to resting on his shoulder. She brushed matted hair back behind her ears and brought her knees up and close to her chest. As she waited for an answer she fidgeted and started brushing dirt and grime from the knees of her flight suit. After a second she was satisfied the knees were sufficiently clean and she took to tapping on the butt of her AP-9 with the tip of her index finger.

"I counted twenty-six just out there… two of those fighters for air support… they've been making passes every ten minutes. If they're smart they probably have some in reserve. I think the other craft we saw was a transport of some kind, a big Raptor or atmo shuttle." He shrugged and picked up a twig and started tapping it on a knee.

"Do we stay here or do we run?"

"This ain't the movies, sir. If we can stay hidden we stay here. I wanted to check on you two, but I'm going to go and keep my eyes on whoever they are-"

"They're _human_, you know what this means?" She looked over and he was staring out into the brush before he looked back and shrugged a single shoulder. Her voice peaked in dreaded excitement. Amorak was staring at one of the trees, speaking if on autopilot. "It means we found the Thirteenth… or an offshoot of them. What if we found a lost tribe… maybe another ship got lost during the Exodus?" Her eyes went a bit wide and she scooted closer to Nikon. "What if this is _Kobol_? There were always rumors many stayed behind…"

"Yeah, I know, sir… but… I thought Kobol suffered some environmental calamity or war," Nikon questioned with a frown. The ramification of this 'discovery' (which he marked in mental quotes) was not lost on him. She gave him a look like he should be more excited. "Listen, I know I should be all amazed and all that but grabbing cock and being all excited here isn't really something I can do right now."

Amorak smiled lazily in acknowledgment and began to roll the coin Nikon had given her between her fingers. "My mom taught me this." She swallowed and stopped with the coin when Nikon's eyes lingered a bit too long. "So we're going to stay put then and wait?"

"We're going to stay put if we can, stay down and in cover, and pray to the gods whoever they are frak off somewhere else, sir. Something, someone or whatever caused that explosion we saw after we crashed. My guess is there's some battle or conflict or something going on right now. I don't want us anymore in the middle then we already are." He leaned back and rested his head for a second before he got ready to go and watch them again. "What are you doing?" He asked as the major took out her computer-sheet.

"I'm going to document this all, captain…" she gave him an understanding look. "Look, I know… you're a pilot. I'm in the Fleet, too, but I'm not a soldier. I've worked in R&D my whole life..." She picked up the AP-9. "I suck at shooting, Premie and you know I suck hard at all of this rough and tough military stuff." She rattled the rifle. "And it has almost no recoil!" She sighed and laid the dull black colored weapon back down and held out here hand. "And frak, I think I broke some nails, too." Premie groaned and she laughed, playfully smacking him on the side of the arm. She flattened the computer sheet and show its bluing glow script to the pilot. "I'm just going to do what I'm trained to do and analyze this… for science." She winked. "And listen to you when it comes to the military things. And anyway… if this is Kobol or Kobolians from some lost colony ship I'd bet we stumbled into some war."

"I understand," Nikon waved his hand, "we need to… get down!" He reached out and pushed Amorak down and to the dirt. She coughed under him after a second. "Sorry, sir."

The same sound of soft, whining jet engines moved slowly over their heads and the thick trees swayed as warm engine exhaust blew down on them and the three Colonials.

"They're heading towards the crash site." Amorak guessed. "We should check it out…" she crouch-walked to Baltar. "Can you get up, Gaius?" She asked, leaning forward and placing her hand on his shoulder.

"Doctor?" Nikon whispered, coming up behind her, "You two stay-"

Baltar held up his hand. "No, I'm good. I can walk. I don't think the internal injuries or whatever are that bad… just bruised ribs." He offered a weak smile.

"You need to stay here, Doc… you too, major. I'm pretty sure you've got some internal bleeding so you need to just stay here, stay still, and let me handle this, alright? Just stay, both of you, please." Nikon advised.

The injured man tilted his head, opening his mouth to speak but Amorak jumped in. "I think Baltar can handle himself. We're fairly concealed here and I need to see what's going on. You have the tactical stuff, I give you that," she held up her hand. "But I'm a scientist. We need all the information we can get and if I can eyeball them and figure out what kind of weapons they may have or communications devices, or gods forbid, IR field glasses, that could help…" her eyebrows rose as his lips creased into a smile, and she nodded to enforce her point. "Baltar will be fine." She pointed down at him and flickered her hand for his support.

He nodded in support of the major and she smiled back at Premie as he rolled his eyes and flicked his head towards the tree line for her to follow him.

Holding the field glasses up after wiping them down- and blaming Premie for them being dirty- Amorak tapped the zoom function three times and waited. The visual field tightened, blurred, and then clarified as optics adjusted and red lines formed boxes around sixteen individual people, fifteen of them wearing the same dulled gray armor and carrying large, brown-gold staffs.

The sixteenth was wearing some elaborate get-up, a tunic with red trim and gold fabric and a pair of subdued brown boots which were open at the sides but tied with some sort of thick ribbon or cord. He also wore some sort of pendant around his neck. His belt, a magnificently decorate silver and blue jeweled piece of artwork looked like it had some sort of slim pistol, nothing more than a rod with a handle, hanging from a thin holster. On his left forearm was a piece of elaborate… something, which wrapped around the forearm and by little cords was connected to gold colored cones on the man's finger tips.

"Are you seeing this, Premie? You see Mr. Look At Me over there?"

"I see little dots and smudged…"

She hit him on the side of the bicep. "What the frak is that tattoo on their forehead?"

"No clue, sir."

Now there were close to thirty of them. Eight stood around the Raptor and ten were at the one o-clock position off the Raptor's nose, near the tree line. The second group was behind the Raptor's engines in the tree line, barely visible except with IR, and the third was still lingering around the hatch and still smoking cabin.

There was a distinct cloud of tension hanging over that group of soldiers. They were all on edge.

"Yeah… that ship that overflew us must have been a transport of some kind, you were right… look, another group of the _kinaidos_." Amorak cursed in the old tongue.

A fourth group, four of the soldiers, with someone who didn't fit at all, came up to the main group. Someone started yelling at the man and violently shoving him around. The out-of-place man got thrown to the ground, yanked up by his collar, smacked around with a backhand a few times, and then tossed face first into the Raptor, grabbed again, and punched in the gut. He keeled over the arm and the four laughed at him before tossing him to the ground.

The man who'd roughed the prisoner up was talking to the fancy-dressed man, who stood back with crossed arms with a look of disgusted hatred for the man prisoner being beaten.

Mr. Fancy Dress, as Amorak was mentally labeling him, held up a hand and began talking into some sort of gauntlet-like thing on his opposite forearm, with a stone set where the gauntlet covered the back of the hand.

Then he held his hand out and a shimmering head popped into existence.

"Holy fraking Zeus's cock, Major," Premie exclaimed. "Fraking-"

"I see it."

Someone to the side of the man's tormentor dragged him back to his feet.

Then a third, using the butt end of their staffs they carried hit the man in the back of the knees, forcing him to kneel and fall to the ground, his outreached arms keeping him from going to the ground face first. He was on all fours when the man who'd knocked him in the back of the knees kicked him forward with a rough hit from his foot.

Amorak saw the original man who'd beaten him lift him up, one handed, but the man spit in his face.

They assumed it was the group leader or section commander or someone of importance.

This 'group leader' had dull gold painted on the shoulder armor and gold-colored guantlets. The other four around him had a single gold line on the shoulder armor and one or two gold stripes running horizontally on their gauntlets. Their weapons, the staff things, were a little shorter, maybe by only a few dozen centimeters and all of them had shaved heads while the other group had some sort of metal skull caps. Amorak and Nikon both focused in on them.

"You see that metal piece behind their ear, heading to the back of their head?" Amorak asked.

"Uh… yeah. What about it."

"What the hell is it?" She looked at Nikon who just gave her a blank look back. "Oh shit."

The prisoner had his shirt ripped off by Mr. Fancy Dress who was holding his hand over his forehead. The prisoner was obviously in pain but neither Nikon nor Amorak knew what was going on. All it looked like was like he was doing some sort of magic curse or something silly to the two Colonials.

"We saw the smoke from some explosion when we crashed, maybe that guy caused it?" Amorak asked. An "mmmhmm" was returned. His camouflage battle uniform definitely set him off from the others. Maybe an opposing side's uniform? "Those staff things look at them… and that stone on the gauntlet that other big guy is talking into. It has to be some sort of communicator… holography… and the tattoos on the forehead like that… not even the Taurons go and tattoo their foreheads like that." She made a little circle in the air in front of her forehead.

The captain groaned. "I see it… ah frak. They're going to execute-"

A golden-orange blast ripped into the man's back at point black- the sound hitting their ears a second later- sending the prisoner face-first into the grass with a deep, black and smoking hole in his back. The Colonials were left absolutely stunned.

"Is that… is… was that an _energy weapon_?" Amorak stuttered. She pawed at the glasses, held them off her eyes just to make sure she wasn't seeing things. "This changes the game, Premie." She mouthed a 'wow' as a soldier's head was instantly encased in a metal helmet which snapped up from the back of his neck. "Well, that's different," Amorak quipped.

Now she'd seen energy weapons, holographic communications, and some sort of metal folding technology. What the frak was next?

"Yeah, it looks like a dog and a falcon or something. Who the frak are these people?" Nikon cursed. He scooted back on his elbows after scanning the woods. The shuttle, or whatever it was, was behind their Raptor and he could see its hard edges curving up to a triangular point, but couldn't see much more. "We should get back…"

His hand went for his AP-9 as a continuous moan of _crack-crack-cracks_ erupted in the distance. A small explosion followed and the shuttle leapt into the air and many of the soldiers guarding the Raptor ran into the forest.

"Fraaaak…" he relaxed and pressed his field glasses back up to his eyes and hit the IR function. While his eyes couldn't tell him anything due to the thick trees, his ears told him enough.

A second and third series of thunderous _cracks_ erupted, this time closer. Then more _cracks_, two explosions which definitely sounded like grenades, and more gunfire. And it was all moving closer towards them.

He grabbed Amorak at the elbow and pulled her back. The two ran back to Baltar who was already on his feet and using trees and limps to support himself as he moved forward.

"What's going on? I heard gunfire!" The frightened scientist said, bug eyed.

"Someone's shooting at those people who shot us down… and I have no idea what's going on, Doc, but we're getting out of here." He grabbed the doctor, threw his AP-9 onto his shoulder, and wrapped a hand around the doctor's waist. "Let's go…"

* * *

Baltar felt his legs give out and he tumbled to the ground and tore up his hand and wrist on a log.

"Frak!"

Nikon had been holding on so tight he quickly followed, his cheek scrapping on the same log and opening up small tears and a respectable gash on the underside of his jaw line. Premie held back from cursing the doctor all the way back to the Colonies, wiped his face and clenching his teeth to fight the anger, scrambled back up to his knees and rolled the doctor onto his back.

"Med kit!" He demanded impatiently. Amorak tossed it over and brought the AP-9 up to her shoulder and pressed it in firmly. "Keep watch, sir."

Nikon winced and reached into the med kit when he saw the bruising around Baltar's flank. The coagulants had worked, or had been working, and he figured the running must have jarred something inside of him. He'd been dragging the injured and now delirious scientist for… he checked his watch… almost two hours had passed.

They hadn't moved far, at least, he didn't think they had. They'd been forced to rest at times and he'd pawned off Baltar to Amorak (and he was impressed with how strong she was) in exchange for watching their back. The gunfire had moved closer and then diverged at about a sixty or so degree angle…

He thought they weren't being followed, swore they weren't.

Then he heard the whir of something, the clicking, the zoom-zap, and then explosions and heat.

The trees shattered around him as a ball of golden-orange bolts smacked into trees. Bark was torn loose and small sapling exploded. The area around him began to sizzle and burn as the intense heat of their energy weapons began igniting the leaves, starting little, but dangerous fires.

He threw himself flat and covered Baltar as Amorak began firing. He scooped his hands under Baltar's armpits and pulled him towards himself to hide his exposed feet. Nikon popped his head up and quickly turtled it as two bright flashes erupted from sixty to eighty meters out and balls of energy ripped into the log.

The pilot almost, _almost_ screamed as he clutched at his eyes. He blinked furiously, Amorak firing back, and felt the watery tears on the back of his hands from the dirt and small bits of bark that had rained into his eyes. He blinked again and his vision began to quickly return.

The smell of ozone burned around them and the air crackled with static as more bolts came flying over and beside him and the major.

"Major!" He shouted over the roar of the bolts. He came up after a close shot and fired a quick burst at the attackers.

He dropped back down and breathed with the AP-9 clutched in close. That last shot had burned hairs off the top of his head…

Amorak fired, ducked and covered, and popped out to fire again. She stepped out and fired for a bit too long, half her shots going wide and missing. Her gun clicked and she quickly hit the magazine release. The little black, rectangular box slapped the ground, rattled, and then lay still. She slammed a second magazine in.

"Frak." She jabbed her shoulder into the dirt and pushed up with her back on the log. "I think there's maybe three or four of them, captain."

"Four," Nikon confirmed quickly, popping up and shooting at the silhouettes, "And two of them are trying to flank us on our right." He quickly switched out a magazine. "You cover me and I'll go and get them."

"Is that a good idea?" She hissed as the ball of energy superheated the air around them. Amorak felt another intense wave of heat surge over them as three of the bolts raced overhead. She was sweating and Nikon was bleeding.

Nikon grimaced. Basic ground combat was _basic_ for pilots. All pilots went through a few weeks of _basic_ ground training just in case. He'd have felt better if he had a full battle dress armor kit on instead of a flight suit, rated only to stop pistol and sub-machine gun rounds… though he conceded in a quick moment as he waited for a chance to fire that those energy blast things would probably burn through a BDAK.

However, he did have a little bit more than basic training and he thanked the gods for that, Athena particularly. Since he flew stealth ships he was in Fleet Mapping and Survey Command- a completely benign, almost boring sounding command to hide its covert purpose. He'd taken the longer 'advanced' five week ground combat training course and his yearly refreshers were ten days versus five.

He even spent some time using the training holobands, but those things didn't really build muscle memory or get your body used to slamming itself into the ground and getting shot at. With real _energy blasts!_

He popped up and fired, using the log to steady his aim. "It's our _only_ option. Or we get pinned and they bring in reinforcements."

He didn't grin when he saw his high velocity AP incendiary rounds smacked into the chest of one of their attackers two times and send him flying back on his ass. These rounds weren't pretty. And this was the first time he'd shot at anything living since the goats and pigs all cadets were forced to kill during training to demonstrate the effect these rounds had on living tissues. These were made to take down Cylons, penetrate the front armor and then not go out the back, rattle around and burn out circuits and frak the Cylons up from the inside out.

If these bullets didn't exit that guy Nikon had just shot and if he wasn't dead he'd be burning from the inside out. That was one of the 'problems' with Colonial ammunition. It was deadly to Cylons which made it absolutely horrible for humans. If the bullet didn't kill the pain from being burned inside out would send someone into shock within seconds.

He didn't have time to check if the attacker was really down or rolling as his insides cooked and he died a slow, excruciating death. "So on three, give them some fire and I'll go out… one… two… three…" he counted down and she popped up, spat a few rounds at the attacks and he ran as the bolts stopped and they took cover behind the trees.

The pilot slammed himself behind a tree and cautiously looked out. He could see the two soldiers moving quickly, cautiously, but quickly, towards them. Amorak kept firing. He heard a _click-click_, a pop, and then a slap as she got the magazine in with new-found expert speed.

Nikon leaned around the tree to get a bead on the approaching soldiers but one of them spotted him as they were leap frogging forward and fired a quick, stuttered blast of four of those energy bolts. Two slammed into the tree, he could feel the blasts shake the tree and he was showered with dirt and bark and two of the shots sailed by, slamming into a shrub, burning through it, and continuing on until they exploded some small tree and sent it crashing down as its trunk was shredded.

He took a chance, exposed as little of himself as he could and fired his AP-9 which barked ferociously back at his attackers, forcing them to fall behind cover to pause and rethink their strategy.

He fired two more three round bursts.

His first burst missed but one of the soldiers screamed and staggered as tree bark exploded into his face and tore his skin. Somehow the man was still gripping his staff weapon but being blinded and almost panicking from loss of vision shuffled into the open. Nikon didn't hesitate, he fired center mass shots and he knew they hit as the man's chest exploded into a shower of orange-yellow sparks and the _plink-plink-plink-plink_ was like a stayr play to his ears. Nikon didn't have to watch the guy fall back, dead and flaccid, for him to begin firing on the second.

"Capt-"

A bolt hit near Amorak and sent her flying towards the ground. Nikon moved to help her only to throw himself back behind the thick tree as bolts tore at the ground and launched the dirt into the air all around him like a geyser. Little pieces landing on his shoulders, his hair, and on his gun. The two remaining soldiers were giving them hell and making them pay for killing their two comrades with a relentless barrage of energy blasts. He could hear the winding up whine of their weapons intensify as they got closer and their shots began increasing in frequency- and while still inaccurate- were keeping him pinned.

"Frak!" Amorak screamed, holding her head under her hands.

"Keep firing, Jessica!"

He stepped out and fired again and drew the fire. Amorak popped up, sighted in through the scope and with her eyes closed fired at the one who'd been focusing on her. She got a hit directly under the chin where the armor ended. The man's neck exploded as his throat was ripped away and flesh and blood vessels were torn loose and blood gushed out. His gargles were so loud they could be heard over the roar of guns. His hands frantically tried to control the blood loss and he gulped for air as his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

He fell to his knees, his hands, bloodied and stained crimson, dropped to his sides. His head, with no way to support itself, fell forward, his chin burying itself in his chest, and he fell onto his right side. The shredded vessels still squirted blood into the air as his heart continued to beat. The green moss and plants around him were painted red.

Amorak had watched as the horror had played out, as not only had she watched a man die by her hand, but as he suffered through his death. She saw the pain and agony he had been in those precious last seconds of his life, a life she'd taken. She saw as he gulped for air, only to be denied, and watched him fall and die. His lifeless eyes were staring at her. She wasn't moving.

Nikon saw her frozen and saw the attacker as he fell onto the ground to rest in death. The other one, still very much alive saw Amorak and stepped behind cover, out of Nikon's line of sight but still capable of hitting Amorak. He ran forward and dove, pulling her to the ground as the searing hot energy balls flew right where her head was a second before.

"Are you okay?" He shook her, yelling, eyes frantic as he searched her for injuries.

"Ye… yea…"

He kept her down and grabbed a magazine from her and ejected his for the fresh one. He took aim again and fired but the soldier was behind a thick tree again. He saw his arm sort of wave and a small round thing- a grenade- fly through the air.

Once again he grabbed the major and buried her under his body, her head and face under his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her to shield her.

Baltar was next to them but Nikon didn't care. He only had one person to protect with his life now.

He thanked the gods. The throw was short and the attacker hadn't been looking. It hit a small sapling and stopped a good dozen meters in front of them and their log had provided protection. He swallowed and swore to end this.

Then he heard something _much_ louder than his own firearm. With a chin dug into his chest he brought the butt of the AP-9 back up, knelled out and took aim. But after a few seconds the chain of fire ceased and his saw the soldier's body, limp and lifeless, on the ground, his head slackened and leaning into his right shoulder like he'd fallen asleep.

The captain sighted his rifle and fired. The soldier's head exploded.

Nikon looked around but saw nothing and then turned his attention back to Amorak for a short second, brushing her hair back out of her face and scanning her with his eyes, searching and hoping he'd find no wounds. Except for some tears, a few scrapes, and a lot of dirt and grime, he looked alright.

"I'm alright…" she met his eyes and his frozen on hers for a brief, long moment.

Mouthing an 'oh frak' he picked up the AP-9 again and brought the barrel up and spun around, finger poised over the trigger.

He'd fraked up. Big time.

He was surrounded.

An older man was staring back at him, pointing the barrel of a rifle with an under slung grenade launcher right at him. He looked like a soldier right out of the Colonial Conflicts. Next to him were two others, both with guns a lot bigger than Nikon's.

He saw two _more_ off to his three o-clock checking the guy whose head he'd just blown off.

Nikon barred his teeth. He had no idea what they were thinking or what they were about to do. Whatever it was…

The man's head ticked to the left as Nikon's hand tightened on the fore grip and his trigger finger tensed and slightly curled in.

"Uh uh." The older man said.

Nikon didn't understand him. But a soldier pointing a gun at you and motioning in a downward movement was pretty fraking universal. Whoever this newcomer was, he wanted Nikon to drop his gun.

And he didn't have much choice in the matter.

* * *

AN: Thank you all to those reading, the story has gotten quite a lot of visitors/hits. Awesome. And to those who reviewed and added stories to their alerts/favorites. Everything is greatly appreciated!

Dusel asked in his review what season of Stargate this is. It's before it went off to become super DEMs and Ascended beings solving all their problems. ;-) It's early in the show but a few things have changed. I will say some bad guys who were killed stayed dead and one who was killed got away and will be one of the Big Bads in the story. I think the bad guy will be well received. He had some good potential. The changes I made will be revealed in a scene which takes place on Earth in a few chapters.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

**Planetary Body 76-34Alpha**

**SGC Designation P6X-153**

**

* * *

**

Colonel Jack O'Neill swayed forward as he tightened his fingers around the RIS fore grip of the M4 rifle as he pressed it deeper into the crook of his shoulder. He shifted a little weight to his front foot, and bent his front knee just a little bit extra… his finger was tensed close to the trigger as he stared down a man with a rifle of his own.

O'Neill, unblinking, motioned three times with the tip of the barrel for the man to lower the weapon.

"Uh uh." He waited. "Put. It. Down." He said, very slowly.

The pilot looked to the left, to the right, and after a soft word from the woman behind him, took his left hand off the fore grip of his own bull pup rifle. He held his left hand up and palm out and slowly turned the rifle until it was on its side. He put it down.

"Corporal."

One of the Marines from SG8, Corporal Robert Davids, the one to O'Neill left, cautiously bent forward and picked up the rifle. He turned it over and frowned, but found what he assumed was the safety and flicked it on.

"It looks pretty similar to ours. Very light for its size, though." He gripped it with one hand and balanced it.

The other corporal, William Hughes, stepped forward and relieved the three strangers of their other weapons; a rifle and pistols.

The Marines of SG8, one of seven Marine teams, were part of the relatively new Marine Special Reconnaissance and Action Command, MARSRAC, but ultimately answerable to the SGC like all other Air Force, Navy, and Army units. They rarely explored on their own but were deployed more for extra security or special missions which required more firepower than the standard four or five man exploratory team.

"Who are you?" O'Neill lowered his own rifle. He got angry stares back. "Can you understand me?" The two looked at each other and then the man said something. "Great." He tapped the rectangular PTT button on his walkie. "Daniel, come up here please."

He offered the man and woman a half-annoyed, half reassuring smile before looking over his shoulder. He saw Carter and Teal'c, with two other Marines about twenty meters back and watching the rear and a blur of green BDUs as Daniel made his way to him.

"Hey Jack, what's up?" Daniel came bounding up. He slung his M4 and followed Jack's pointing index finger. "Oh…" he smiled at the two. "Hello."

O'Neill took a step back and was conferring with the Marines, setting up a quick perimeter. He wanted to be gone and out of here in five, ten minutes tops. The gunfire would have attracted more Jaffa.

"Hey, Daniel, the Jaffa are maybe two klicks back, but we need to hurry. They don't seem to understand us."

Jackson nodded and squinted at them. There wasn't any writing… then there was a slight 'ah ha!' when he saw a camo backpack with some script on it.

"See that," Daniel pointed, "it looks like Greek lettering… but it's off. It's like a blend of Greek and Latin. But that sign, the single snake over the rod, it's the Rod of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing and medicine." He licked his lips and switched to ancient Greek. "_Can you understand me? I am Daniel Jackson._" He patted his chest.

Nothing.

The man who'd had the gun had his palms up and was motioning towards the backpack with the Rod of Asclepius and pointing to the unconscious man on the ground.

"Jack, I think that man needs help."

The woman behind the man leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. He nodded and then pointed back at the backpack, with a little more force.

Daniel looked back at O'Neill and then at the man as he stepped forward and sat on his heels and reached into the backpack for the man and retrieved a dull gray case with the same Rod, outlined in a dull blue, on the center. He clicked it open and looked at the contents and saw nothing but what looked like medical supplies and showed Jack.

"Alright, Daniel, but be quick, we have to get going." He motioned with his chin at the three. "They need to understand they can either come with us or stay."

The man muttered something, Daniel leaning forward. "_If you can understand me, I need you to just keep talking so I can comprehend what language you are using."_ He said it again, a little more slowly in ancient Greek and then repeated it twice more in Latin.

The man took out a syringe and lifted up the shirt of the unconscious man. Daniel and Jack winced at the black and blue bruise which was covering his entire flank and the pain of being injected shot the man's eyes wide open. He rolled to his good side and brought his knees close to his chest.

Major Simon Ramos, CO of SG8 came trotting up to O'Neill. He stopped for a second to give the three people a glare. "Sir, we intercepted a communication intended for our Jaffa friend over there," he nodded at the one they'd shot, the one with the big hole in his head, "and they're about thirty, forty minutes behind us. They still think we headed north, sir. Apparently they think we split up." He widened his stance. "These our new friends, sir?"

"Apparently, major." O'Neill shook his head and as he tapped his fingers on the grip of the M4, took a step forward. "Daniel-" he started but was interrupted with a curt backhanded wave from the archeologist. O'Neill gave him a mean glare which was close to burning a hole through the back of his friend's head.

"What do we know about them, Colonel?"

O'Neill looked down at the major, a good two to three inches shorter and a bit slimmer, too. The combat helmet seemed to eat his small head up in it.

"We don't know much. Daniel's still trying to figure out what language they speak." The Colonel rolled his eyes but inwardly smiled as Daniel began nodding. It seemed he was getting the gist of whatever language it was these people spoke. "Those are definitely flight suits and if I'm not mistaken, those, "he pointed to a diamond looking device with small stubby wings, "are flight wings." He swallowed. "Get any news on the staff sergeant?"

Ramos shook his head and unbuckled the chin strap for his PAGST helmet and wiped off some sweat which had been bothering him for the last twenty or thirty minutes. They had a few minutes of downtime, so why not?

"Sergeant Gerhard has the communications gauntlet with Major Carter, sir, but I don't think we have anything new. Except for what we heard when we took it off headless back there," he jabbed a thumb at the dead Jaffa, "there hasn't been much chatter going on the Jaffa comms."

O'Neill reached out and grabbed the Marine on the shoulder, right over the vest and squeezed. "We don't leave our men behind, Ramos, we'll get him back. We have to assume the Hasykos took him wherever that shuttle went. Once we get to their airfield and get a shuttle or transport glider, we'll go after him." Ramos gave back a shallow nod then turned back to rejoin Major Carter, Teal'c, and his other Marines. "Alright, Daniel, it's been a few minutes, what do you have? You've been talking like a bunch of schoolgirls." He looked up and say Corporal Hughes snicker from behind the three and across from Daniel.

"I think I've got it, for the most part, Jack." He mumbled an 'um' under his breath and pushed up his glasses. "From what I understand they were looking for something here… they detected some sort of explosion in space from a few light years out-"

"Well, Martouf said the Tok'ra blew up a _Ha'tak_ in orbit about two-ish years ago. They detected that?"

"Yeah, I guess," Daniel shrugged. "From what I gather that's where the Hasykos's shuttle was heading and that streak of smoke we saw was them crashing."

"Did they see anyone, anyone like us?"

Daniel turned to the two and talked slowly. The third, the man who'd been injected with that syringe was awake now and was propped up against the log they'd taken cover behind. He was pretty quiet and O'Neill guessed he was probably either in a lot of pain or drugged up on morphine or whatever these people used.

"Yeah, Jack… they said they saw someone who was dressed like us. He was killed at their crash site by someone in fancy clothes."

O'Neill's fist clenched, his jaw tightened and he turned half way and glared at the dirt and then back in the direction of the crash. The local Goa'uld, the Hasykos, or as Teal'c called him the 'local director of the pushers of paper' (they were still working on his colloquialisms) had to be the one. He was one of about fifteen to twenty snakes at the facility they'd been sent to blow sky high.

The Colonel looked back down at Daniel and decided to give him a minute more before interrupting him. He was getting a good conversation with the man- the pilot- and the woman, maybe his co-pilot? He knew a flight suit when he saw it. Some things like that were constant. And he noticed what had to be ranks on their collars, and the extra little hash on the woman's insignia's. So she might be his superior? O'Neill mentally frowned at the questions. Daniel would get them answered in time.

Instead of interrupting them he quietly recalled how they'd ended up here in the galactic boonies: five months ago they'd blown up a moon, styled on the Judeo-Christian Hell, by the System Lord Sokar. Apparently Apophis and Sokar had died in Netu's explosion… apparently. They had 'apparently' died, O'Neill added in mental quotes.

Jacob had meandered through the gate two days after the Foothold incident with yet another mission only the SGC and SG1 in particular, could undertake. O'Neill had thought that week was bad enough, being basically cocooned alive, hung from the ceiling by red goopy cords which looked like intestines, and his image used for some nefarious alien purpose. But as things seemed to go in the universe that had not been the icing on the Cake of Ah Crap. The icing had been when Jacob had come through the little blue circle of a wormhole two days later, along with Martouf, and revealed that Sokar had not been killed.

They'd gotten Apophis, sort of. Unfortunately O'Neill couldn't add Apophis to his kill list because he hadn't killed him directly but he and SG1 had been responsible so he gave himself some minor props for it. Getting Apophis to rebel against Sokar was a good move to weaken Sokar and get Apophis to get himself killed.

The bad news was that Sokar was seen on Delmak, very much alive after Netu's explosion, at the pavilion where he administered the planet and where he dealt with public matters concerning his twisted version of law and order.

He had publicly executed Apophis by crucifixion on a raise metal cross of gleaming silver in the middle of a lake of fire. A hundred thousand of Sokar's subjects had been present, yelling obscenities at Apophis, and praising their god for his righteous judgment on a false god who had caused so much bitterness and sorrow for the people of Delmak.

The finishing blow had been delivered by Sokar himself. A small sword had been plunged into the back of Apophis's head, at the base of the skull where the Goa'uld parasite would reside. Jack had seen the video of the eyes flash on final death glow before Apophis's head on slumped forward and hung there lifeless.

The ruins of Netu continued to rain down on the planet. The rubble of the moon hung in a tenuous orbit of constant decay that forced Sokar to tie down his _Ha'taks _and position them around the planet and blast any chunks of rock large enough to cause damage. A Tok'ra agent had sent back sub-space video of the execution (its disgusting irony not lost on O'Neill) showing the moon, still burning, and the magnificent streaks of fire in the night sky as molten hot meteors rained on the planet, destroying buildings and setting fields on fire.

O'Neill had felt small and weak for doing that to the people of the Delmak; hundreds of millions of them who had been brainwashed after centuries of Sokar's rule. They were victims in the Goa'uld's reign of terror on the galaxy.

Netu's destruction and the dust in Demlak's atmosphere was tying down the majority of Sokar's fleet. He was forced to rebuild shattered and battered defenses and industry. His attack on the galaxy had to be delayed while he rebuilt his forces and saw to the needs of his people. Even a sadistic and cruel murderer and tyrant such as he still needed the people of Delmak to survive and be strong in order to fuel stoke his furnaces and build his weapons of conquest for his war against the System Lords.

Sokar's growing threat to the galaxy had forced the SGC, with the Tok'ra and their intelligence network, to take the fight to Sokar in the way they knew best; small, clandestine strikes designed to weaken and humiliate. Destroying Netu had been humbling for the 'god'. Destroying his weapon facilities and shipyards and mining operations would lead to his war machine crumbling… a death from a thousand cuts.

Three weeks ago Jacob and Martouf had come back through the gate. They'd revealed that this planet was host to a secret weapons project as well as production center. It was producing enough capital-grade staff canons to arm dozens of ships and had been one of Sokar's little secret side-project planets. Even his Jaffa and Necropolis Guard were disguised, out of their red armor, and presented as just some run-of-the-mill Jaffa with the forehead tattoos of some long-defeat and dead Goa'uld underlord.

They _still die good from bullets_, O'Neill thought as he patted the M4.

So in the last six weeks he'd stared down evil Killer Lego Bugs and genocidal Alien Space Nazis and for the last two weeks SG1 and SG8 had been training with each other over at Camp Pendleton at one of the SGCs new joint training bases.

O'Neill, lost in thought as he waited for Daniel just had to curse Sokar again and question how the devious asshole of a snake had survived Netu's explosion. And now they were here, running from a company of Jaffa, because the Tok'ra intelligence had been anything but.. 'no more than a platoon of Jaffa… no Necropolis Guard…'. _Poor intel…_ _one of those universal constants_, O'Neill mused, _Murphy is probably laughing his ass off; anything that can go wrong and all._

SG8 had been overrun at the gate and before they could get a signal to the SGC for SG10 and 11 to reinforce them. They'd hooked up with SG1 and were now heading to an airfield about ten kilometers away which had death gliders… get a few of those and incinerate the area around the gate and then dial home. That _had_ been the plan.

Now the pooch seemed to be bending over again, ready to get screwed for the third or fourth time today… O'Neill couldn't remember exactly how many setbacks they'd had over the last few hours, but whatever number it was, it was a lot. This was FUBAR. FUBAR, FUBAR, FUBAR he repeated over and over until he slapped away some really freaky mosquito-wasp looking thing from sucking the blood out of his forearm.

"Ow…" Jack itched at where that bug had been sucking. "Alright Daniel," the Colonel rolled on his heels and plopped forward a few inches, "time's up. Whatcha have now?"

For five minutes, while Colonel O'Neill had been waiting patiently, Daniel had figured out enough of their Greek/Latin language to understand them and hold a moderate semblance of a conversation with them despite Jack looking over his shoulder the whole time.

As Daniel was about to speak both Teal'c and Major Carter came up. Instinctively the two pilots, now standing, backed away when they saw Teal'c and his choice of armament. Daniel was quick to explain Teal'c and his particular situation as a member of their team.

Major Ramos was also hot on the heels of Carter and O'Neill took a step back, putting Teal'c and Carter between him and Ramos and the three strangers. He quietly informed the Marine of his man's death. He took it fairly well.

O'Neill had read Ramos's file. He was a decorated Marine who'd seen action in the Gulf War, had taken part in covert operations in the Balkans and Africa, and had been part of a secret command who'd trained Columbian military forces to take on FARC and other paramilitary terrorists groups. He'd only lost three other men to enemy fire in his thirteen year career so far. The Marine had a reputation for getting his men home and a spot on SG8 was considered an honor for a lot of the young special forces Marines coming through the SGC pipeline. He and SG8 had been on almost thirty missions to date, with twelve of them combat oriented.

Ramos asked for permission to tell his men and the Colonel granted it and turned back to Daniel. There would be time to mourn later. Now O'Neill needed answers ASAP and they needed to get going soon before the Jaffa they'd killed failed to report in and death gliders and shuttles begin disgorging troops in the vicinity.

"Yeah… um, well, this is Captain Antony Nikon," Daniel pointed and Nikon bobbed his head, "and she's Lieutenant Jessica Amorak and he's something similar to a Navy chief, named Gaius Baltar. Captain Nikon is a pilot and Amorak is a signals officer or something, the translation wasn't clear. They were mapping this region of space when they detected some sort of particle and explosion or something- I couldn't translate, and they came here. They were shot down."

Daniel had received the information from Nikon. He wasn't aware Nikon had fibbed slightly. He'd said Amorak was a signals officer. In Colonial Fleet lingo that meant she was in charge of wireless communication equipment and the computer networks. Baltar was just some random chief… his long hair might have thrown the little lie but Daniel didn't realized Nikon had gambled that the hair wouldn't be an automatic red flag he was lying.

"So who are they pilots for?" O'Neill asked with a hint of '_hurry up Daniel and get to the good stuff_' left unspoken.

"Teal'c," Daniel looked over his shoulder, "they told me they're called 'Colonials' from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol… I told them I've never heard of it," he grinned, "they didn't believe me. Have you, by any chance, heard of Kobol or some sort of Twelve Colonies?"

Teal'c's eyebrow rose and his head cocked to the left. "I have not heard of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, or of Kobol, Doctor Jackson."

Major Carter stopped her inspection of the Colonial weapons and handed the rifle back to the Marine corporal. "They mentioned an explosion? Are they talking about the _Ha'tak_ the Tok'ra sabotaged a few years back?"

Daniel turned to translate. "Yes, they said they detected a radiological signature from roughly two light years away as well as a particle they call… oh… _Prometheus_."

"Prometheus?" Carter's eyebrows rose slightly. She made the connection to the ancient Greek titan who brought the world fire and assumed similar mythology for this culture. And then she assumed that to name a particle 'Prometheus' meant it must be very important to them. "So I take it this particle is important to them… _Ha'tak_ ships do release exotic sub-space particles when their naquadah generators are destroyed and sub-space arrays. It is possible they could be detectable. I believe the Tok'ra just set charges on the naquadah generators… nothing really fancy." She shrugged.

Colonel O'Neill secured his helmet under his arm and brushed at a tickle a drifting leaf had caused as it swiped his nose. "We're not getting back through the gate…" He looked at his watch. "And the break time is up, Daniel. I need to know if we can trust these people."

"I think we can. And, well, they came in a ship, right? And we can't get through the gate… so why don't we ask them if they have another ship waiting?"

The Colonel glared at Daniel for a moment. Hitching rides and getting help from people they didn't know… well… he was a bit wary, but that _was _how Teal'c had joined them. But in the last three plus years O'Neill had become slightly more jaded. There were a lot of people in the galaxy who were no one near as honorable as Teal'c and had their own nefarious agenda.

But they couldn't get out to the gate. It was too heavily guarded. O'Neill hated to admit it but the plan to get to the airfield was probably about as likely as succeeding as storming a Stargate with forty to fifty Jaffa guarding it. Teal'c had seen the schematics for the airfield; motion sensors, life sign detectors, automatic turrets, and a garrison of maybe a platoon or two of Jaffa, maybe even some Necropolis Guard-

"The Tok'ra won't be able to send a rescue for weeks, sir. We don't even know if they can. They're stretched thin trying to bloody Sokar as much as possible." Carter said to interrupt his thoughts. "Are you thinking…?"

The Colonel nodded. He rolled his eyes at Daniel's backside as the scientist reflexively began translating for the Colonials.

"If they're military then they've got a window before they're reported missing. My guess, Carter, is a few hours if not already. Daniel, see if you can hitch a ride for us." He walked over to Daniel's side and in English, began speaking. "Listen, I know you can't understand me. But we need your help. So I'm gonna trust you here and do something I shouldn't, but will. Because we're going to need your help if the Jaffa come back." He looked over his shoulder and called Corporal Davids forward. "Corporal, hand back the weapons to the Colonials."

The corporal nodded and handed back the rifle he'd slung over his shoulder and took the second rifle from Major Carter and handed it back.

O'Neill felt apprehension race through him and despite the warm, now humid afternoon sun heating up the air, some cold air swirled around him and he felt a cool shiver run down his neck. This was a gamble. But it was a gamble he had to take. Two more guns, possibly three if that Baltar fellow was doing better would help the odds out. And SG1 and SG8 were stuck between the metaphorical rock and hard place and O'Neill knew each decision he made could be disastrous.

He needed help… he needed to trust them so they'd trust him…

The Colonial, Nikon, gave Corporal Davids a questioned look but took back the weapon with only a moment's hesitation. He checked it over quickly, maybe for any signs of tampering or just because of training and handed the weapon to Amorak and then took his own rifle and then the pistols back. O'Neill had to stop for a second and admire the firearms.

"Alright, Daniel, ask them."

Daniel snickered and turned back around to translate yet again. O'Neill listened, recognizing a few Greek and Latin words now that he was paying closer attention (nothing more than what he remembered from one year of high school Latin).

"They said yes. They said they have ships a few light years away and they will dispatch a search and rescue party if they aren't back."

O'Neill perked up. "A warship?" Carter snickered at the Colonel's question. He gave her an innocent smile and a lopsided shrug of his shoulders. "It's a relevant question."

"Oh, I agree, sir." She nodded in playful amusement. "Big honkin' space ships, sir." Carter bit her lip to keep from smiling. She knew Colonel O'Neill had a fascination with big ships and big guns… some Freudian thing.

"Well…" Daniel had already translated, "if I got it right they said they have two ships they call 'battle suns' and three more they call 'attack suns.' So…"

"Sounds impressive…" O'Neill clicked his PTT mike button three times in a quick dot-dot-dash and the Marines all converged on their position. "Alright, so…" he looked at everyone, "how long until rescue?"

"Two hours or around there," Daniel said.

"Sir?" Ramos looked at Daniel and back at O'Neill and then over to the Colonials who were helping their wounded buddy to his feet.

"They've got ships coming in two hours to rescue them. So what we're going to do is head towards that airfield and then cut away from it and head southwest. I want some C4 planted here and one of our phosphorous grenades over in that brush. We'll detonate, start a little fire or something, and get the Jaffa to concentrate over here while we go somewhere else."

"Yes sir," Ramos, his hand a little bloody from some scraps and cuts from the last firefight tapped a corporal on the shoulder and pointed back to an area with his thumb, "get on it, corporal. So we can trust them?"

"They do seem pretty confused by all this, Colonel," Major Carter said, "I don't think they've ever encountered a Goa'uld before."

"With space travel?" Ramos shook his head.

"The galaxy is a large place, Major Ramos," Teal'c wisely intoned. He tightened his grip on his staff weapon and stepped back away from the group to aid the corporal in setting up the explosives.

Carter nodded her agreement. "He's right. The galaxy is huge. Even with hyperdrives and all that there's a lot of places to get lost… I mean, Earth was pretty much lost and forgotten for thousands of years."

"Maybe there'll be open to an alliance?" Ramos thought aloud.

Daniel sighed lightly and wrinkled his nose. "It looks like their society is influenced by the Greeks more than the Romans but depending on how its changed and evolved, for all we know they could be incredibly hostile. The Romans and Greeks were fairly violent people and could be very hostile and arrogant to others despite what's seen on TV."

"I thought you were supposed to be the trusting one, Daniel?"

"The Colonel's, right," Carter said with a smile, "he's supposed to be the pessimistic one."

Teal'c and the Marine corporal returned.

"We're ready to leave, O'Neill."

The Marines took point and spread out in a standard patrol formation and got to their intervals and stopped.

Daniel was about to step forward when he felt a hand on his forearm. He looked back. Captain Nikon was holding him back, Leuitenant Amorak was next to him, and Chief Baltar to her side, using part of the stretcher the Colonials had as a makeshift cane/walking stick.

"_We're going to come with you and if our rescue comes in time, you can come with us,"_ Nikon told Daniel who shallowly nodded back. Captain Nikon didn't have that authority to make such a determination and he knew it. "_We told you where we are from. Where are you from? You've never heard of Kobol. So where are you from then?"_

Daniel cracked a little grin and looked down at the dirt. He realized he hadn't told them where they were from. In his excitement he'd asked all the questions without really giving them much information at all.

"_We're known as the Tau'ri."_ A blank look returned his statement. "_We're from Earth."_

That got a reaction.

* * *

The loud cracks of gunfire, the deafening explosions of C4 and claymores, and the fiery crash of a Death Glider hit by a rocket had attracted more of the Jaffa. And they came not in small groups, but in a platoon size.

A shuttle screamed overhead and landed fifty meters out behind a small hill, in a clearing. Death gliders swooped up, stopped midair, and came back down for an attack run- everyone had lost count how many times this run made as the wind howled as the glider sliced through the air…

SG1, SG8, and the Colonials were defeated. They were heavily outnumbered, surrounded, and had no air support. They were down to their last rockets and their last magazines.

The Death Gliders had red wing tips; Necropolis Guard. They were excellent pilots and each time the Tau'ri or Colonies attempted to move the gliders kept them pinned. The Goa'uld wanted hostages, captives, prisoners of war to torture and beat for information.

Everything was running low. Colonel O'Neill leaned up and braced himself and fired the last of his foty millimeter grenades. Major Ramos took careful aim with Corporal Davids covering him and fired his. Two young Jaffa, with nothing more than chain mail and leather straps on their chest flew in the air and onto their backs. One was missing a left leg below the knee.

The Colonials weren't doing much better. Even with weapons designed to take down armored Cylons the Jaffa of the Necropolis Guard, the ones Amorak and Nikon had seen at the Raptor crash site, had armor of far superior quality to the regular Jaffa legions. Grenades worked, and Ramos fired one to take out two of the Guard, but bullets weren't doing much damage.

"Grenade!" Teal'c shouted in his low, still calm voice. He barely saw the Jaffa arm one of their softball-sized stun grenades, Somehow he was able to bring his staff weapon down just in time.

The blast leapt out, it's golden-yellow bolt _cracking_ as it broke the sound barrier. It raced and hit the Jaffa at the shoulder, ripping the man's arm off. The heat cauterized the wound but not even the healing powers of a Goa'uld could keep the Jaffa from falling into shock.

The little snake squirmed out of the Jaffa's pouch, ready to pounce and take a host from one of the Jaffa… until a boot from one of its would-be servants (or victims, depending on the boot of view) stepped on it, breaking it's fragile spine.

It didn't even hiss as it died. Or if it did, no one cared and no one heard. Gunfire, grenades, explosions, and gliders were all anyone could hear or cared to listen for.

Teal'c kill of an enemy Jaffa, Ramos's and O'Neill's grenade hits were small and insignificant at this point.

They were defeated. Finished. Done for.

The only question now was how many Jaffa would die before they got to their defensive position and went hand-to-hand and were incapacitated…

SG1 and SG8 had come too far and done too much today for it to end like this. Their defensive position was basically being stuck in a glorified ditch, a dried creek bed with their backs to a small cliff, their right flank covered by thick logs and growths, and their left with rocks.

Sergeant Gerhard was over on the left flank at the moment, taking cover in a natural outcropping of rocks which was shaped sort of like a machinegun nest and gave him an excellent firing arc. He had a SAW, with a bipod, and was laying down excellent covering fire.

Then a death glider swooped in. The blast hit the little white-stoned rock. And his body.

Amorak was looking at it when the blast hit. A Goa'uld staff weapon was, by all intents and purpose, the same be it fired by a Jaffa, on a death glider, or on a _Ha'tak_. It was a measure of scale. Staff weapons were a simple yet elegant design in that they could be scaled appropriately for their task.

The death glider blast hit Gerhard in the left flank. He exploded like a balloon. A blood filled, organ filled balloon.

The blood was hot, almost burning as it splashed on the rest of the teams.

Amorak's face was covered. She wiped her eyes frantically and vomited over herself as she inadvertently licked her lips and tasted his hot blood on her tongue.

Some body part hit Nikon in the side of the head, throwing off his aim, sending half a dozen bullets- half a dozen bullets which couldn't be wasted- harmlessly into the sky.

The youngest member on the team, Lance Corporal William Blue, the closest to Gerhard was burned by the heat, lost his footing, and smacked his face into the rock, breaking nose and teeth and falling a meter down to the dried creek bed unconscious.

"My God!' Someone yelled.

Amorak saw O'Neill twist, kneel, and pick up Blue's weapon and begin firing. His left side was drenched in blood.

How could a human body even have so much blood?

"Jessica!" Nikon was on her and looking for any wounds. He wiped the blood from her face and eyes. "Gods damnit… you're alright…" he could barely talk he was so relieved she wasn't hurt.

A blast above their head snapped Amorak back to reality. She looked for her rifle, grabbed it, pressed it tight into her shoulder… it slipped out from the slick blood but she pressed it back it and held it firm and retook her position.

Nikon crouch-walked a few meters to her right to check on Baltar.

Doctor Baltar was probably the most valiant of the bunch at the moment, or on so many pain killers he didn't realize just how fraked they were. It may have been drug-induced courage. Perhaps only semi-conscious, with a definite glazed looked to his eyes, he was popping off rounds from an extra rifle the SG teams had provided at the Jaffa with some newfound skill. He was shooting, ducking down, and rising back up to shoot like a professional, though there were some hints of movies and TV influencing his movements.

A few bullets hit one of the lower-ranking Jaffa warriors, one wearing nothing but chain mail, and sent him flying onto his back, his body draining of blood and in shock, wouldn't live more than a few minutes longer.

Another tap took down a second Jaffa… Nikon fell down beside Baltar, checking on the scientist, and fired at a Necropolis Guard to force the tall, muscled warrior back. His bullets didn't penetrate yet a lucky hit smacked him on the forearm and the force of the shot was enough for the Guard to drop his staff weapon and a well-placed shot from Major Carter put a bullet through his cheek which blasted out the top of his skull and sprayed brain matter over a second Guardsman's armor.

"Here, Doc." Nikon handed him another magazine he'd picked up for the SGC 'M4' rifles. Baltar snatched it away and on autopilot ejected the empty black-gray magazine and slammed in the new one.

"Clear!" Major Ramos yelled over the cracking of firearms and blasts of staff weapons. As dirt was being kicked up around him and rocks being blasted into small and potentially murderous little fragments, Simon Ramos came up with the last of the teams' rockets; an AT4-CS, specifically designed for close quarters combat the reduced back blast would be of less risk in the confined space of their defensive position.

The back blast kicked up dirt and sticks and leafs behind him as the missile streaked out from the green, yellow striped tube and lashed out at a tightly packed group of Jaffa. At seventy meters a missile moving at two-hundred and eighty-five meters per second hit before the Jaffa could even react.

The missile hit right in the center of a group of six Jaffa and one Necropolis Guard who had been part of a larger force attempting to flank the defenders. The HEDP warhead tore apart the Jaffa and the blast shockwave killed even more. The assaulting force slowed when a stun grenade a Jaffa had been priming got blasted towards into another groups. The whine and white flash knocked three more Jaffa unconscious. The rest hesitated and looked ready to break, ready to face the wrath of the Hasykos and Necropolis Guard, until a death glider swept in from behind and strafed the SGC/Colonial position, forcing the defenders down.

A Necropolis Guardsman, confident the Tau'ri were now facing imminent defeat rallied the Jaffa and a new group split off trying to flank the defenders.

One of the gold-yellow bolts grazed a Marine in the right flank. His armor was useless as the superheated plasma melted through the protective side plate, seared flesh, and boiled blood. The Marine was the team's gunnery sergeant, Richard Morrison. He dropped his rifle and fell to his knees as his eyes rolled back into his skull.

"Medic! Gage!" One of the Marines shouted to the corpsman. "Gunny's been hit!"

Petty Officer second class Mike Gage popped off a three round burst from his M4 and was quickly by the man's side. He shielded the gunny as a tree overhead exploded from a staff blast and showered down hot ambers and bark onto the defenders.

His skills were being put to the test as he worked furiously to stabilize the Gunny while also making sure Corporal Blue didn't lapse into death.

Another death glider came in and raked the position. Corporal Davids followed it with his SAW and Teal'c with his staff weapon. A little black-brown smoke began trailing from the engine compartment, but it was hardly crippling damage to the well-built and resilient Goa'uld craft.

"Keep firing!" O'Neill shouted. He squeezed the trigger and unleashed a burst on a Jaffa who'd been a bit too-bold and tried to move up. The SG1 leader saw the golden-yellow sparks on the Jaffa's armor confirming his hits and he moved onto the Jaffa' comrade to the left. A staff blast from Teal'c knocked the second Jaffa back as his blast tore through the armor and into the Jaffa's pouch.

Major Ramos, at O'Neill's side fired a rifle grenade and shattered a tree, splintering two Jaffa and ripping an arm off a third.

"_Jackson… I'm getting another transmission_!" Nikon shouted. He held his wireless wrist band up to his ear. He could barely heard through the thick pops and cracks of staff blasts and kinetic firearms. "_What... no… everywhere! Broken sarissa, repeat broken sarissa_!" He shouted.

Amorak scooted towards him as she fired her AP-9, ejected the magazine, letting it plop to the ground, and slapped her last one in. "_Is that_-"

"_The fleet's back in orbit!_" Nikon shouted over the roar of gunfire. Daniel was by his side. "_Tell your Colonel that our fleet is in orbit. They'll be here soon."_

Daniel went back to the Colonel who flashed Nikon the universal thumbs-up sign.

The first SAR had come in a little over twenty minutes ago. It wasn't a full SAR but more of a scout Raptor, a Raptor-S like Nikon's from _Valkyrie_. The battlestar _Gorgon_ was also on the edge of the system, nearly thirty solar units out and after the Raptor, piloted by Bulldog, had jumped back to _Gorgon_ the two had returned to _Valkyrie_.

Bulldog didn't have the time to stay long. Major Amorak had uploaded a file for a wireless data burst into their emergency beacons which went active if they detected an SAR's signal. That data transmission had just been a few paragraphs long, about five hundred words explaining their current situation. Bulldog hadn't had time to read it as Captain Nikon ordered him back to the fleet immediately since it was probable the Goa'uld could detect the stealth Raptor.

He'd complied and jumped back to _Gorgon_ immediately. No one could see it, but _Valkyrie_, _Gorgon, Pan, Chios, _and_ Attia_ were in high orbit, launching Vipers and Raptors, and coming for their pilot and scientists.

"Hey doc," he slapped him on the shoulder quickly, "the fleet is coming. Just stick it out a little longer, alright?" Baltar nodded frantically. "Keep your head down, Doc; you're doing a good job."

"Hey!" Someone shouted from behind him. It was O'Neill. "You wanted to see-" they heard nearly a dozen booms in the atmosphere and O'Neill looked up. "-your people are coming…" He grabbed out and pulled Nikon and Baltar down as a death glider streaked by. Its bolts gave up short but dirt, shot into the air like a geyser, trickled back down on their backs. "We don't have much time, captain!"

Nikon didn't understand the words but knew what they meant; they needed rescue ASAP.

The captain swiped at his cheek. O'Neill had saved his life but he cut his cheek on some rock pretty bad and there was a large gash bleeding profusely onto Nikon's dirtied, browned, and stained flight suit. Nikon wiped his hand and flicked it to the side and wiped the blood on his suit leg then pointed up and O'Neill squinted. He could barely see the small dots, the size of knats, out on the horizon. They were rapidly approaching.

A blast cruised by Nikon' ear and slammed into a tree in front of him. "_FRAK!"_ The bark splintered and ripped at his cheek again.

"Sir, I'm down to my last two magazines!" Carter shouted from behind him. She fired from her M4 and ducked as staff blasts hit the rocks and logs.

He wireless receiver crackled again and both Nikon and Amorak struggled to hear over the roar of blasts and explosions.

The two got the important bits though and they shouted in their native tongue at Jackson to get everyone down and they pulled those around them down. One Marine pulled back and shot a charging Jaffa in the leg, who tripped over and face planted in the dirt.

The Jaffa were trained from birth to accept high casualties. Even the elite Guard if necessary. This battle could have been over in minutes if the death gliders had actually targeted the center of their defensive position. But the Hasykos and Sokar would want prisoners. The Tau'ri were becoming legendary among the Goa'uld for the ability to destroy and lay waste to everything which stood in their path.

Escaping from an inescapable prison moon and destroying a moon and wrecking havoc of Sokar's home world had only added to their impressive reputation among those opposed to the reign and lordship of the System Lords.

If they had been able to capture the SG team, any SG team, the Jaffa would be rewarded by their god with promotions to elite units and stations. The Hasykos would receive riches and a larger domain. If… if…

Right now the surviving members of the teams and three Colonials waited. The Jaffa saw them go down behind their cover. The Guard held back their Jaffa from charging head long into what could only be a Tau'ri trap.

They knew the SG teams, with the exception of Teal'c used 'primitive' ballistic weapons which relied on 'primitive' gunpowder and projectiles. They also knew their ammunition was not limitless. But they knew the Taru'ri had feinted defeat before only to draw overzealous Jaffa into the open.

Colonel O'Neill was pressed against the bank of the dried creek bed, a small stone jutting uncomfortably between his shoulder blades, and he watched a death glider at his three o-clock position come to make another staffing run… then he heard a whine and a rush and a white line of exhaust and thumb nail sized plume of yellow-red fire catch his eye. It slammed into the nine o-clock position on the death glider, right behind the cockpit and in front of the engine mounts.

The red tinted wings crumpled in on each other and the glider took a sharp dive for the ground. It spun three and a half times before smacking into the thick forest, cutting trees, and exploding into a brilliant red-green fireball as its naquadah fuel cells breached and exploded.

They felt the heat wave on their face and the trees whipped forward and backwards as the overpressure and shockwave rushed over them all. Dirt and sand was kicked up, blinding the SG teams and the Jaffa advanced stalled again.

The second death glider, at least two, maybe three kilometers in the distance rose up as it swung its nose around, stopped for a split second and it stuttered. The pilot quickly banked but one missile exploded ten meters away, sending a horrifying cloud of shrapnel into the cockpit and airframe and a second missile, sweeping down, punched into the engine block and the glider exploded.

The Colonials were here.

Half a dozen dart-shaped craft flew over the heads of the Jaffa, SG teams, and Colonials. A vanguard of four tan, sandy-colored squat aircraft with large missile pods and intimidating chain guns latched to their tiny wing stubs launched themselves forward as a vanguard. Six more followed them up from behind.

What happened next wasn't even a battle. It wasn't even a fight.

The Colonial Raptors had sped down and on a dime, stopped and twirled, positioning themselves between the Colonials and SG teams and the Jaffa. Their stubby noses were pointed down at the Jaffa with their engine sticking up in the air.

Their chain guns activated, each sweeping a field of fire. The two middle Raptor unleashed anti-personnel rockets. High explosives and chain guns bullets tored into the Jaffa and left them no more than bloodied pulps. On the flanks each Raptor in part fired in to out.

On the right a group of Jaffa attempted to flee. The Raptor pilot gunned the engine, tapped on the pedals ever so slightly and rose twenty meters into the air. She fired and cut them down. It wasn't any harder than cutting grass.

One Jaffa managed to escape the carnage and fired back. His staff weapon seared one of the forward DRADIS receivers but the Raptor pilot was quick on the reply. A soft tap on the little red circle on his joystick and the Jaffa was reduced to nothing more than a fine mist of ruby-red blood drops. The Raptor was so close a finger got blasted into the air and pinged his cockpit.

The four attack Raptors steadied and leveled out. They hit their thrusters and shot vertically for fifty meters before breaking off in pairs of two to guard the perimeter. The dart-ship, the Vipers, sped and patrolled overhead. Two broke off and chased away a lone death glider but didn't engage as it disappeared over and behind some mountains.

Half a dozen of the squat and short tan-sand colored craft came down in; their thrusters pushing aside the grass and blowing leaves and ambers of burned wood everywhere. Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill were already up, standing next to Major Amorak, and all three were shielding their eyes from the hot engine wash.

The best thing to do when people you didn't know were approaching you with guns, big guns, was to stand relatively still and not do anything which could be perceived as hostile, threatening, or too sudden.

"_You should sling your rifles immediately,"_ Amorak warned as ten Colonial Marines cautiously approached them. Three were off to the side and kneeling; their rifles not pointed at the SG teams but held at the ready.

"She said we should sling our weapons, Jack," Daniel translated.

"Sling weapons… carefully!" O'Neill shouted.

Teal'c took his staff weapon and held it in front of him, hanging, and perpendicular to his body one handed. "They do seem like a formidable force, O'Neill. It would be wise to do what they say." He was expecting the Colonials to demand they hand over their weapons.

The sun was in their eyes but squinting, Colonel O'Neill could see the hatches of the Raptors rise open. Five soldiers in heavy armor, will bull pup battle rifles a bit larger than Nikon's and Amorak's jumped out from each Raptor and began establishing a perimeter.

The Colonel spotted in each Raptor hatch he could see a lone man or woman in a lighter version of their armor, probably a flak vest, and underneath wearing the same green flight suit as the three Colonials, stood at the door with one of the rifles Amorak and Nikon had. O'Neill assumed it was a co-pilot designated for guard duty.

"That's impressive." Major Carter leaned over to O'Neill and pointed as half a dozen soldiers rushed forward to where the Jaffa had been and began clearing them of weapons and checking for any that were alive. Half a dozen more were cautiously and attentively watching their back "I take it-"

"They're probably checking for potential prisoners." O'Neill shrugged.

Colonel O'Neill waved for his men to stand down.

The perimeter the Colonials had established was a half-circle due to the cliff. Their four attack Raptors were hovering in the sky about eighty meters up and a hundred or so away. There were soldiers watching each side as a group of ten approached Colonel O'Neill and Major Amorak. Two on each side of the ten peeled off and kneeled, their rifles not pointing directly at the SG teams but they were at the ready.

"They're not taking any chances," Daniel muttered with a little eye roll at what he perceived as undeserved paranoia directly at them.

Captain Nikon had Baltar up and handed him to a Marine and he and Amorak began moving forward, slowly, with Colonel O'Neill and Major Ramos behind them by three steps.

Daniel was a step to the right of Ramos and O'Neill and heard the conversation.

First the soldier, a Marine, came to attention and salute. It was a salute similar to the Jaffa's with the right fist hitting the left crook of the shoulder, and the Marine was addressing Amorak as 'sir' instead of Nikon.

"Huh."

"What, Daniel?"

"The soldier's addressing Amorak instead-"

"She's his CO… Nikon's." Daniel gave Jack a questioned look and he smiled back and motioned with his hand. "Those insignias on their collars, they had to be ranks. Hers had an extra mark on them so I assumed… plus I doubt she's a 'signals officer'. And I've been in the military my whole life, Daniel. I can spot who's who."

"Oh… why did they lie?"

"He probably didn't really trust us. Whoever Amorak and Baltar are, they're pretty important. My guess is he was like their pilot slash body guard or escort. He was protecting them."

Daniel answered with a quiet 'ah huh' while he split his attention to the Colonials and their discussion on them.

"She just explained who we are. The soldier… uh, Marine, said they found the Raptor crash site and have another team… they found one burned body and one other body which looked like an execution-"

Ramos's eyes widened. "They found Staff Sergeant Tomes?" Ramos stepped forward and put a hand on Jackson's forearm to get his attention. Daniel's head jerked to face him. "Then they need to get his body." He looked at O'Neill. "Sir, we don't leave our men behind."

"I know, Major… hold on a sec."

"They also said they capture a shuttle which was trying to take off… something about a bullet cracking the cockpit and killing the pilot. They want to take it back to their ship but don't know how to fly it. I think we can get them to get the Sergeant but we'll need Teal'c…" Daniel switched to the Colonial language as O'Neill groaned at Daniel's implication. "_Uh, excuse me,"_ he stepped forward. The Marine, who was wearing dark-shaded ballistic glasses looked down at Amorak and Nikon and over to Jackson.

"_He speaks our language, major?"_

"_Yes. That is Doctor Jackson. They also need medical assistance, Major."_

The Marine nodded and called back for medics to assist. Daniel translated for Major Carter who took them back to their wounded Marines in the creek bed.

"_What do you want, Doctor Jackson?"_

"_You captured a shuttle. We can fly it if you retrieve the body… it's one of ours that were killed. He was wearing a uniform similar to ours?"_

The Marine looked him up and down and then over at the rest of the SG team. His right hand pressed a small button on a subdued green backlit display which was wrapped around his left wrist. He spoke into a small microphone coming from his helmet in a quiet voice and then nodded. "_Yes, he had the same uniform. You want us to allow you to fly an unknown craft into one of our warships...."_ the tone was almost accusatory.

"_Or you can let us take it-"_

"_No. If we can't fly it out we'll be placing charges inside and destroy it."_

Daniel closed his eyes and swallowed. This might be difficult. "_We don't have a choice in this?"_ The Marine just gave him an annoyed look, though his opaque ballistic glasses didn't reveal much.

"_Major Usher,"_ Nikon said, "_we're going to be bringing them back with us." _Nikon gestured back at the SG teams.

"_Captain_," Major Usher stressed the rank, "_I'm here to make that determination, not you. We have a window of thirty minutes on the ground. There are ships above the ecliptic of the system coming in at high speeds… very high, captain and they'll be here in about ninety minutes."_

Daniel's eyesbrows shot up and he took a step back and leaned to Jack. "They said there are ships coming in," he whispered. "I'm betting _Ha'taks…_ they'll be here in about an hour and a half." Jack nodded.

"_Doctor Jackson_, _you want us to get involved in your war. We can't do this." _Usher tapped the side of his ballistic glasses and they went from an opaque gray to a clear translucency.

"Daniel." O'Neill wanted to know what was being said.

"They said they can't get involved in our war."

"Tell them-" he widened his stance and leaned forward.

The Colonial Marine held up a hand and cut off O'Neill. The Colonial knew the older man would protest by his tone and body language. "_You are not from this world and we know nothing about why you are fighting this enemy… we've been forced to fire in self-defense… you may have started this conflict."_

Daniel's mind flashed back to the Eurondans, the advanced 'Alien Space Nazis' as Jack had described them during their debriefing a few weeks back.

He'd asked the same questions of Alar and Ferrell… well, he'd had similar suspicions about their war. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been on the receiving end of something like this because everyone in the galaxy _knew_ the Goa'uld were evil SOBs but on the other hand almost everyone knew of the Goa'uld to begin with. Daniel still wasn't sure how people with hyperdrive and space ships hadn't encountered them at all.

Even if they hadn't the tales of their horrors were enough to galvanize someone into action. The Obranians, Daniel remembered, had been so frightened when the SGC had told them of the Goa'uld they'd accepted an alliance and exchanged naquadah technology just for a detailed dossier on Goa'uld strengths and weakness.

But that was the least confusing of the myriad of mysteries surrounding the Colonials; they'd claimed that humanity was from _Kobol_ and that _Earth_ was the colony rather than accept that humans had been taken from Earth and seeded throughout the galaxy. It was sort of similar to the Optricans and Bedrosians but he'd never heard of anyone claiming that Earth was the seeded planet before.

Again, he didn't understand, especially since these people worshipped the Greek Pantheon. He'd heard the names of Asclepius, Poseidon, Ares, Zeus, and Athena mentioned by the three Colonials over the last few hours when they'd been whispering to each other in a second language which sounded like Proto-Latin mixed with early Balto-Slavic. The names of the Olympians were the few words he'd recognized.

He'd concern himself with everything later. Right now he needed to figure out a way for the team to get out of here and off the planet safely.

"_I understand why you would be concerned-"_

"_We have to help them, Major," _Amorak repeated sternly. "_We've stumbled into something we don't know anything about and put ourselves on their DRADIS. These people attacking us brutally tortured and beat a prisoner after shooting us down without even hailing us on wireless. They saved us. We take them back to the ship… and? If they're a threat we can determine that there and put them in the brig if you have to. But until then they've proven their honor by their acts here. They saved us. You know what that means? Honor for honor."_

She crossed her arms and stared down the Marine who had about fifteen centimeters of height on her outside of his armor without his helmet. The Marine was basically the epitome of the stereotype; square jawed, broad shouldered, and with steel hued, blue-gray eyes. His friends joked that he was one of those men who could grow a beard in a day by simple will power. To top it off he had a small scar which ran under his lower lip from the left corner to the middle of his chin from an anti-piracy op ten years ago.

That rough face stared down a light brown, soft and feminine face. But Amorak's eyes were just as hard as Usher's.

"…_and blood for blood… but this isn't Tauron, Major."_ He wasn't backing down.

"Tauron?" Daniel repeated the word a second time. The Colonials were ignoring him.

"_No, you're right, this isn't Tauron, Usher, but Alala demands that we return honor with honor, Marine. Or do you not believe in the teachings of one of the Marine's patron goddesses?"_ Her eyes narrowed as she dared him to contradict her. "_You have the authority to make the decision. You're the ground commander."_

She'd been able to send a few words back on the SG teams in her short data burst. She made clear they needed help in evacuating from the planet.

"_I know,"_ he hissed and he saw that Amorak sensed victory from his tone. He conceded without any more argument. In truth he'd planned on bringing the SG teams with him- per Adama's orders, if it was safe. He just needed to be sure and see them with his own eyes if they were trustworthy. What he saw were fellow soldiers who'd helped his comrades in need. And Amorak was right; Alala taught that an honorable act must be repaid in an equal way. "_Doctor Jackson, tell your pilot we will take him to the crash site. We will accompany him and he's to follow us and the orders of the pilot we will assign to aide him…"_ he looked them over again and hesitated and pointed at their rifles. "_If you hand over your weapons we'll take you with us to our ships… we have medical facilities for traumas… Commander Adama will have to decide what to do from there."  
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AN: Thank you for everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I really appreciate everyone who has reviewed, read, and added the story to their favorites or alerts. And thanks to king of hybrids for help on ideas and some proofing.

Concerning Sokar being alive: Yes, it is Sokar and Apophis is really dead. The SGC believed that Apophis was dead after Netu's explosion until Bra'tac informed them otherwise in the episode "Maternal Instinct." For the purposes of the story the Harcesis is with Oma but the SGC does not know of Oma's existence. So as far as canon goes this is everything that takes place up to episode 4.2 with the exception of "Maternal Instinct" (3.20). If there's any questions on that I'll answer them in the next chapter update.

The Hasykos is just a made up rank for the Goa'uld underlings serving Sokar. I'm going to expand their culture a bit to include different sub lords and classes of Goa'uld to go along with the Goa'uld who served the various System Lords like were in the series.

In "Children of the Gods" the staff weapons were much more powerful than later on in the show and Jaffa armor was stronger. Same thing here. The various Guards like the Serpent Guard, Horus Guard, Necropolis Guard, etc. will have much better armor and weapons than the 'regular' Jaffa and much better training. There's also more SG teams in the story than canon at this point in time (I think there were twelve or so, maybe a few more) and more inter-service cooperation.

The Cylons reacting to the 13th: The Cylons will make an appearance in later chapters discussing the 13th. The particular scene will reveal a bit on what the Cylons are planning. They've been very busy.

Next chapter: The SG Teams makes themselves at home on a Colonial battlestar and SGC tries to figure out what happened to them- Jacob, Martouf, and a guest character will make an appearance, too.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

**BS-41 Valkyrie**

**Deep Space**

"Then you haven't seen anything like this?"Captain Melicia Upland put her index finger on the image and let it slowly rotate as she stood to the side of the screen, her other hand resting on her hip and clutching a crinkled computer sheet. "You have never seen any variant of these Cylons?" She changed the image to show a baseship. "What of the Cylon baseship or any of their other ships and fighter craft?" The images cycled through about a dozen different kinds of space ships.

Daniel just shook his head. He was getting a bit tired of saying 'no' again and again. As tired as he was when the Colonials had begun questioning him about these robots he'd straightened a bit, sat up, and washed away that developing bored look. Whatever these robots were they were kind of interesting and as Jack would say, a little 'cool' in their design. Those baseships on the screen were the largest ships he'd ever seen in his life.

The Colonials had revealed next to nothing about these robotic enemies of theirs with the exception that the battlestar group's original mission had been to investigate what they believed was to be a Cylon stealth ship.

The way Upland had talked about the Cylons, to Daniel at least, sounded like a mix between fear, trepidation, and some sort of strange respect.

Down on the planet he'd heard Nikon and Amorak mention 'Cylons' a few times when they'd been whispering after SG1 and SG8 had rescued them. Apparently the Cylons were some sort of AI robotic enemy of the Colonials and by the looks of it the two were in a decades-long cold war which could have made the Cold War on Earth look mild.

It also gave him a bit of a creepy vibe that there appeared to be a native race of robots with the potential to rampage across the galaxy here in the Milky Way. The Replicators were enough just on Thor's ship, but at least these seemed to be more conventional and less von Neumann…y.

"We've encountered robots before. But they were a part of a long dead civilization. There were only five of them and they were completely harmless… one of them was a bit annoying but they were concerned just with keeping their last facility running… they weren't out trying to conquer anyone."

"I see." She clasped her hands behind her back and rocked back on her heels. "But nothing like the Cylons?"

"No, I think I'd remember a seven foot tall robot that looks like that," he pushed a chin out at the screen, "if I ever saw one."

He bit his tongue for the moment on Replicators. They weren't even native to this galaxy so…

"Very well," she nodded to herself, "then a change of subject is in order. Are you hungry, Doctor Jackson?"

"No, lunch was fine, thank you."

He'd had a sandwich which tasted exactly like corned beef though a bit more salty with a sweet cheese and bland sauce on it. They'd also served it with these blue pieces of fruit which looked like grapes but tasted almost like a bag of Sour Patch Kids he'd eaten as a kid but were bitter without the sweet.

His lips puckered just thinking of how bitter those blue grapes were.

"Then these Goa'uld… you claim they are impersonating the gods. Like I said yesterday we've never encountered sapient alien life before, nothing more than animals and bacteria. You've also claimed that some planets worship the Goa'uld as gods… for example, these Bedrosians and some _Nefertum_. Plus the Jaffa, Teal'c's people, see the aliens as… the living embodiment of gods?"

"That's about it, yes. Some races saw the Goa'uld come in and co-opt religions, like on Earth and use them to control ancient civilization. Some Goa'uld abducted humans and then _introduced_ them to the religions they'd co-opted and set themselves up as the _embodiment_ of the deity in question and in effect creating a religion around themselves."

"I understand."

"But you don't believe me." He sighed. The tone in her voice was subtle but he detected skepticism. He was impressed she wasn't relying on notes but not impressed at her inability to be open-minded. A slow close of her eyes and a slit forward tilt of the head confirmed his statement. "Then we need to discuss the Goa'uld and your gods.... again…"

Daniel thought it was about time he said something more about this. They'd been going on for… he turned his wrist then remembered they'd taken his watch. They'd taken everything electronic from them. However long it'd been, they'd been going on a long, long time.

The metal chair and the bland lighting in this room were getting to him. It was apparently some room meant for training or delivering classroom instruction. There seemed to be space for maybe fifty or so people and a few tables but the room had been cleared and the tables and chairs stacked except for the one he and Upland were sitting in and this single table.

Over on the far bulkheads immediately opposite the hatch was the Seal of the Battlestar and in the front the Seal of the Colonies, a stylized golden phoenix. A few other pictures and plaques dotted the bulkheads of the crew doing things or those dart-shaped ships, Vipers flying by, a few pictures of what looked like a boxing match, and other fun activities military ships put on to keep their crew from getting bored.

Space on these battlestars (he found out yesterday 'battle sun' was an improper translation after listening to more of their language) was at a premium like all space ships. Each compartment had a purpose. Or in this case, this compartment served as classroom and make-shift interrogation room.

They had prison cells and he assumed more prison-like interrogation rooms- he'd seen them because they'd been held there for a few hours when first being brought on board before being given junior officer's quarters- but he figured this was a more 'homely' atmosphere to put him at ease.

He'd glanced at a clipboard hanging next to the hatch. Apparently there was some training exercise scheduled in here for the ship's Marines sometime today (he assumed today if he read the date properly). Some sort of weapon inspection followed by a lecture on tactics by Major Usher (he'd recognized that name anywhere and thought the guy was a bit of a prick jerking them around on the planet).

When he'd walked through the hatch he'd gotten a chill. The room was cool and the air was a bit stale. It reminded him exactly of the SGC or a Navy ship. The actual design motifs were fairly interesting and had piqued Daniel's curiosity numerous time over the last few days. You could vanish away all the Colonials and replace them with a bunch of US Navy sailors and nothing would look out of place.

The incident with the Bedrosians had caused Daniel to become a bit more jaded and also much more cautious in how he dealt with other people's cultures. Others had reacted unkindly before but the Bedrosians had gone the extra mile down the Cruelty Highway and actually tortured SG1. He had to be diplomatic in talking about the Goa'uld and whether or not they had impersonated the Lords of Kobol or the Kobolian deities were Goa'uld.

He'd already seen signs of a deeply religious culture spread all throughout the battlestars. There were signs and symbols venerating their Lords of Kobol all over the ship. In this very compartment the colors of Athena were painted in thick lines above the hatch frame; blue, green, and gray as six lines alternating in that pattern. In Ancient Greek culture the number six represented brotherhood and fraternity and Daniel figured that made sense on a military warship.

Understanding what the Goa'uld were and how they used beliefs to manipulate were vital to getting these Colonials to comprehend the danger they were in. Their ships were big, yes, and seemed powerful, but they were the new kid on the galactic block that Earth was four years ago. And Earth didn't go out sending kilometer long warships out into space screaming '_here we are!' _like these people just had to perhaps the most powerful Goa'uld currently in the galaxy. Though blowing up Ra…

Regardless, he needed to tell them. But each time he tried to tell them he kept getting interrupted…

"You claim they were aliens."

"Yes."

Melicia Upland frowned at him and turned back to the image being projected onto a thin and transparent sheet of plastic- apparently a larger version of their 'computer sheets.'

Daniel would be completely unsurprised if there wasn't someone watching them from some secret little camera hidden somewhere in the room and feeding her suggestions via the ear piece he couldn't see her wearing but knew she was.

The FID captain, after receiving her orders, brought her hand up and with a toss of the wrist 'threw' the image away off the side of the screen and brought up another. It was a scan of Teal'c, with the symbiote prominently placed inside his sac and him laying under some sort of imaging device.

"So who is that disagreeing with me on the other side there?"

Upland turned around, annoyed, but tapped the side of her ear. "Brother Kline, the ship's priest. Obviously he disagrees that our gods were alien." Daniel tilted his head in acknowledgment but not agreement with Upland and this priest he'd not had the pleasure of meeting yet. "It's curious you keep implying that our gods were evil aliens. That's what I seem to be getting unless my inference is wrong, Doctor Jackson."

"Remember I said they may have just impersonated your gods, the _Lords of Kobol_. That's what happened on Earth, captain; the Goa'uld came in and began co-opting religion. I'm not saying you worship aliens. You haven't really given me much to go on." Daniel shrugged in his defense. "The Goa'uld are parasites with no real culture of their own. They take culture from everyone else and incorporate it into some strange mishmash…" he saw her head ticked to the side and her eyes narrow at not understanding the word, "um… a conglomeration of beliefs and culture and they make it their own. So what I'm saying is that if the Goa'uld took you from Earth to Kobol your beliefs are _not_ necessarily wrong but any living embodiment of your gods on Kobol may have been a Goa'uld."

"You told us the Goa'uld are evil, maniacs, egomaniacs in fact." She frowned at him as she listened to what Kline was telling her in her ear bud. Upland had read enough of the Scrolls to not receive a lecture on their meaning and interpretation but Kline had insisted he listen in where the Lords of Kobol were concerned. "Anyway," she began again as a cue for Kline to let her resume, "our gods lived in a paradise with us on Kobol. They weren't perfect and we know that- we don't accept the idea that gods are perfect beings but Prometheus gave us fire, Hephaestus engineering and science, Athena wisdom, Hermes and invention… Athena threw herself from the tallest mountains on Kobol in anguish at failing humanity and our Exodus. That doesn't sound like evil."

"And all I'm saying is that the Goa'uld saw those traditions on Earth and used them for their own benefit. They used the cruelest attributes of the Greco-Roman gods because the Goa'uld are incapable of good. There are Goa'uld who claim to be the ancient gods and _are evil_. When they took you from Earth they would have enslaved you. As time passes we tend to look more fondly at the past. Depending on the circumstances of how the Goa'uld left your world they may be remembered differently… the Bedrosians again saw Nefertum as a _good_ god despite having abducted them and enslaved for them countless centuries. History and truth is often lost as time progresses and many Goa'uld kept their slaves from recording their own history. You've admitted to lacking a complete history before you left Kobol so by your own admission, you _don't know_. Right?"

The captain offered him a condescending lip smile and sat back down. "That thing back there," she pointed with her thumb over her shoulder, "is supposed to be a god or somehow capable of impersonating a god and then establishing a galactic empire? It's a glorified tape worm a cow would've shit out…" she looked back lazily over her shoulder and still looking at the image, with the back of her head to Daniel, said, "Actually, it looks like a fraking donkey cock."

Daniel looked off to the side. He hadn't heard that one before but the Colonials had a casual speech which could be considered inappropriate at times. "Despite its appearances-"

"Yes, despite its appearance as a cock… we recognize that somehow they've gained a significant amount of power even though it seems the existence of such an organism is borderline impossible. We accept it exists and these snake things as real and are capable of doing what you say- giving the host long life, repair of the body, and to having a genetic memory. So the purpose of the Goa'uld is conquest?"

"They try to conquer the galaxy on an almost daily basis. Together they're more powerful than any single government but they're fractured and fight amongst themselves. They see humans as slaves and as hosts to serve them."

"So their organization is feudal?" She asked and Daniel nodded. "How many ships and soldiers do they posses?"

"We honestly have no idea. There could be hundreds or thousands of _Ha'tak_ motherships. But they're spread all over the galaxy. Teal'c was the First Prime to one of the System Lords we helped defeat, Apophis-"

"First Primes are generals?"

"They're more like special forces commandos and tacticians. First Primes control their lord's house guards- the elite Jaffa warriors and the System Lord's elite personal squadron of _Ha'tak_ motherships. For Apophis Teal'c would have personally commanded roughly half a dozen battalions of _Serpent Guard, _a few wings of death gliders, and maybe three or four _Ha'taks_.There were other minor Goa'uld who served as Apophis's generals; his son for example. And being fractured and spread over the galaxy makes solid intelligence impossible. But really, you need to speak with Teal'c or Colonel O'Neill or Major Ramos about their military capabilities."

"Very well… what are the military capabilities of Earth?"

Daniel shook his head with a small wag of the finger. "I don't think so…" his look was apologetic.

She frowned. "The Thirteenth are our brothers which makes _you_ our brother as well. Many people see Earth as no more than legend and myth… eventually our people will learn of your world. How did yours react to aliens?"

"That's sort of complicated…" he winced, "something to discuss at a later time perhaps?"

Captain Upland looked like she wanted to respond, was about to, but relaxed with a little smile and changed the subject with a small tap on the table."

"The symbiote…" she pressed a key on a remote sitting on the table and the image magnified. "Is it possible to remove those things?"

"They'll die."

"…I see."

"They're very dangerous, captain." He was pointing at the screen. "Very. They've dominated the galaxy for tens of thousands of year and maybe longer… listen, you're new to this. They're capable of taking almost any organism as a host with humans being what they prefer. Once a Goa'uld implants itself it can exert complete and utter control over the host and impersonate its personality to a point where even a friend could barely tell the difference. They took us from Earth-"

"Yes, this god you claimed called himself Ra. He sounds similar to our titan Helios."

"I would need more information-"

"How old is your civilization?"

"I take it you're referring to the civilization on Earth which mirrored you own? You're asking about the Greeks and Romans?" She nodded. "About four thousand give or take a few centuries. What we call Ancient Greek civilization evolved from an earlier civilization. The Mycenaean civilization… they were the first to worship the primordial deities you call the Lords of Kobol. They're called the Olympians on Earth. That was between twenty hundred to sixteen hundred BC… about four thousand years ago but the Minoans predated-"

"That's interesting… but let's ignore that for the moment and focus on the device you call a Stargate. The issue of our histories is not going to be solved here or soon. And it is not entirely pertinent to what we need at the moment. We need to know about threats. So let's talk about the Stargate more. Is that acceptable?"

He cocked his head and blew out a long sigh from flared nostrils. He mentally strangled her at her constant stonewalling.

"Yeah, I guess," he sighed.

Daniel figured it was better to be ignored. He'd take a flippant attitude about the origins of these Kobolians over an overtly hostile attitude any day of the week. Gladly.

"You're saying this device allows travel between separate worlds?" She was out of her seat, near the wall and tapped the faux-glass panel hanging down. Upland saw him look at her without expression after asking the question. He was annoyed he was getting asked the same question over again. "Let me rephrase and say this device allows transportation. That is a statement. I believe you."

She certainly liked her TV wall thing. He figured it was the Kobolian version of Power Point. Mentally chastising her he had to laugh at the similarities between the Colonial and American military. They _loved_ Power Point or in this case, Colonial Point.

"How did you even get that video?" He pushed up his glasses and leaned forward a bit more. It wasn't just an image but a full video. He could see maybe three dozen or so Jaffa patrolling around the gate.

"Standard procedure during SAR missions, Doctor Jackson. The surveillance equipment on battlestars has the capability to record large areas around targets of interest. But that's not here or now. You're claiming this gateway, this Stargate, is capable of sustaining a galactic civilization. The bottleneck presented by the Stargate makes that claim impossible."

"Bottleneck?"

"Major Carter and you claim that a stable wormhole is capable of existing for thirty-eight minutes." She waited until he nodded. "Only a handful of people could move between one gate to the other. Unless some sort of train system is established the transport of goods would be limited."

"That's not its purpose, not really. The gates allow a small migration and small movement of people over thousands of years. Over that much time it can become significant. The Stargate offers more of an exchange of ideas and technology rather than goods. And planetary populations are fairly low…" he strung out the last word for an extra second.

"So are armies capable of moving through the gate?"

"I do remember Teal'c mentioning they were able to move a few thousand Jaffa warriors through quickly once, but it took extensive coordination. But for mass invasions the Goa'uld generally use the Stargate in conjunction with an attack from space. They launch small attacks to hold the gate and prevent escape while the motherships launch troop transports."

"So the majority of people move via FTL capable ships?"

Daniel shook his head in the negative and then took a sip of water. The glass was way too cold for his liking and the water almost burned as it glided down his throat. "The Goa'uld don't allow many civilizations to reach a point where they can be threatened." The image on the screen changed again to show a death glider. "They use ships like those, 'death gliders' to attack primitive civilizations and scare them into service."

"What's to stop someone from sending a bomb through the Stargate?"

"Nothing… but we have an iris we can close on ours. It prevents people from coming through. Few of the Goa'uld use such devices. We're not exactly sure but the Tok'ra have implied that some treaty prevents the System Lords from using shields to cover their Stargates and sending bombs to Goa'uld worlds."

Upland found it strange that the Goa'uld would not just send a nuke through a Stargate. But it wasn't like such limitations on the use of weapons weren't unheard of. Centuries ago in some rare act of cooperation Canceron, Virgon, and Libra had lead an effort to ban nuclear weapons in warfare in the Colonies and had put forward a proposition in the Inter Colonial Assembly, a forum where the Colonies and the nation-states on Colonies not yet unified could voice grievances. Tauron and Caprica- sworn enemies- had literally laughed the idea out of the ICA.

Despite how strange it may be Captain Upland was beginning to understand the nature of the Goa'uld. This was a classic 'in it for the power' set-up. The Goa'uld weren't even pretending to be conquering for the 'greater good of uncivilized peoples' like the old empires of Caprica or Gemenon or the ten other Colonies had done. The System Lords were just in it for themselves.

That could make them either very dangerous or incredibly stupid if their egoism and narcissism could be exploited. And the proof of that being possible was sitting right in front of her; apply the proper force, even if small, at the right time and the house of cards could come crashing down.

"How many Goa'uld worlds are out there? What are their military capabilities?"

"Like I said earlier, that's more Teal'c area of expertise. They have hundreds of ships and maybe thousands… but they're out there fighting each other and rarely can focus that fleet. But we've personally been to a little over two hundred and fifty… I know Bosch claimed to have been to two thousand worlds or something…" he saw her give him a strange look, "oh, Bosch was a bounty hunter… but the point is there are thousands of worlds connected by the Stargates. There's dozens of System Lords and possibly hundreds of sub-Lords, captain. Sokar, for example, controls relatively few planets but has a home world heavily industrialized for the Goa'uld."

Upland sensed hesitation from the academic and could taste his mild distrust float on the air. The language barrier was getting frustrating. Daniel Jackson was an academic and treated this like an academic meeting, like a classroom. She was a smart woman and patient, one didn't get into FID by being dumb and reckless, but she needed answers. The military capabilities Sokar's forces had displayed were wanting. But they'd caught them off-guard and they had had nothing more than fighters and some sort of heavy corvette present. The gliders had also been chased away from the battlestars as they put up a thick screen of warning fire.

She'd been in CIC when Commander Adama had ordered the barrage. Colonel Tigh had requested to just shoot them down and blow them up but Adama didn't want to drag the Colonies into anything it couldn't possibly negotiate its way out of. The Cylons were still out there and the last time they'd gone to war with the Colonies they'd kill a sixth of the population.

She figured she'd just have to go for the obvious to snatch some more information out of him. Her eyes fluttered down at the manila file folder under her left hand and she rubbed her index finger on the crease. She was saving that for later.

"Unfortunately Teal'c doesn't speak our language. So until our computer can create some sort of translation software, you will need to answer these questions. Doctor Jackson, this is of vital importance to the Colonies. We never knew these people existed. We're on their DRADIS." She paused and spelled out the acronym for Daniel. "You're on their DRADIS and it would benefit you to tell us as much as you know. You are on our ship. Our ship is a target. You are a target."

Across from Daniel the captain looked back at the screen and tugged down on her tunic. Daniel had seen a few variations of the Colonial uniform while being escorted around various parts of the battlestar. Unlike many of the other officers her belt loops were black instead of a dark navy blue. The dark gold belt buckle also had some symbol in the center which was hard to see. The rectangular patches running from her color to her deltoids were a space black instead of the dulled blue on most everyone else. On the left was the BSG-41 patch, which Daniel knew designated her as a member of _Valkyrie's_ crew while the right had a second patch which had what appeared to look like a pair of lightning bolts flanking a scroll.

She'd identified herself to Daniel and the rest of SG1 and SG8 when they'd come aboard as the captain who'd be their primary interrogator or 'debriefer'. The word in their language was apparently the same. That didn't sit too well with Daniel and churned his stomach in a few too many uncomfortable ways. The FID sounded like the NID or something sinister though his concern might be more from too many movies where nefarious 'intelligence agencies' are the bad guys. Still…

The Colonials had left them largely alone for the last thirty-six hours. They'd stripped them of their uniforms and given them clean pairs of green work fatigues though Daniel couldn't much fault them for that. Jack's uniform was covered in blood and his own looked like he'd been in some mud wrestling match. Upland promised to have their SGC uniforms cleaned and back to them at some point today or tomorrow.

Everything else had also been taken. The computer Sam had used to download the Goa'uld weapons designs, their firearms, Teal'c staff, their flak vests, their radios, everything. Daniel had been expecting the equipment to be laid out before him and had been pleasantly surprised they weren't expecting him to answer questions Earth weapons or technology- one fewer set of questions at this point. In fact, he'd noticed a lot of their equipment looked similar.

Major Amorak had visited them the other day and expressed her thanks again for helping her, Baltar, and Nikon and had told them she was in their debt. She'd also thanked SG8 and had informed them that they would be allowed to interact again in a few days- they weren't allowed out of their JO quarters unless it was to shower or answer question though one of them was allowed to sit in the medical bay to be by the bedside of Lance Corporal Blue and Gunny Morrison while they recovered.

As he sat there waiting for a response to his 'thousands' comment he felt his stomach churn and a strong pang slowly traveled from his midgut to his throat. He figured it wasn't hunger since that sandwich had been fairly filling. The little pangs were more out of boredom than actual hunger.

What he wanted to do more than answer questions was his job. He wanted to study their history and learn about them but he figured being handed a few censored comp sheets like he had been given was the best he was going to get. This was a military ship and military secrecy and distrust seemed to be one of those constants again.

He would have also settled for a little sleep on those beds which were a bit too hard and a bit too small. Since he was the only one who could mash together their odd Greek and Latin combo language he'd been forced to do all the translating and debriefings. It was kind of tiresome.

And they had _a lot_ of questions.

"Frak … thousands. Thousands of worlds," she whispered, leaning forward

"_What is the population of these planets?"_

That was Commander Adama in the ear bud.

"Like I said most planets aren't really that heavily populated. A lot of them only have settlements in the immediate vicinity of the gate and then some subsidiary towns and villages for farms or mines… natural resources. The majority of planets have maybe twenty to fifty thousand inhabitants. The larger ones have millions."

"Oh?" she decided to shoot very low. "Millions… as in the single digits?"

He nodded. Daniel wasn't sure how many people were in these 'Colonies of Kobol' but he assumed maybe a few tens of millions judging from what they'd seen over the past three and a half years.

"Sokar controls a heavily populated and industrialized world named Delmak. We believe there might be three to four hundred million on that world, maybe more. It's an outlier. Despite most worlds having a relatively small populations Goa'uld industry is heavily automated. They can produce weapons and ships much more quickly than one would expect. Like that weapon facility we blew up back there." Daniel jabbed his thumb over his shoulder and twisted it a bit off to the side, pointing in multiple directions. "It was largely automated and could produce weapons for a lot of Sokar's ships. A lot of Goa'uld industry is automated in the stages of final fabrication and construction… and the automation allows for a much larger force than one would associate with their population size.

"I see. So a major planet has three to four hundred million people?"

"Yes."

There was a faint buzz in her ear. "_You can tell him more about the Colonies, Captain but keep it vague."_

"Three to four hundred million is considered high for a planet?" She asked.

"For the galaxy?" Daniel asked and waited until Upland nodded. His eyes narrowed and he slowly answered her and his own question. "Very…"

"The Colonies are located in a stable quaternary star system with twelve inhabited planets… we have a population in excess of thirty billion."

She was low by fifteen but Doctor Jackson didn't need to know that.

The bored, almost annoyed archeologist almost fell out of his chair. Upland looked off at the corner into the hidden camera and smirked. He wasn't one to be rendered speechless.

Daniel took off his glasses and tossed them onto the table. "Did you just say… thirty _billion_? As in-"

"Thirty thousand million, Doctor Jackson. Thirty _billion_."

"That's impossible."

She scratched her pointer finger with her thumb and looked up, slightly amused and smiling with some very white teeth. "What purpose would I have to lie to you? If I wished to embellish why embellish so high to the point it is unbelievable?" She hesitated but Daniel, after coughing, found his voice again.

"That's a lot of people… how is that possible?"

"I told you, we're not from Earth, Doctor Jackson. A little over two millennia ago we left our home world, Kobol, in a great fleet, the _Galleon Fleet _and traveled to the were millions of us. You don't believe me. But Doctor Jackson, _you're_ from Kobol."

"We seem to be going around in a bit of a circle, captain. You keep insisting we're this 'Thirteenth Tribe.' But we have the evidence that humans originated on Earth. Fossil evidence. We have cities and structure dating back thousands and thousands of years and tools dating back tens to hundreds of thousands. Maybe humans from Kobol did leave to go _back_ to Earth, but humans were transplanted from Earth to other planets." He figured she still didn't believe him and frustrated, rubbed his hands together and leaned forward again n the table. "There's an archeological site in a country known as Iraq, a site called Jamro. It's the oldest agricultural town in the world, dating back roughly nine thousand years. And that's just one out of many, some dating back thousands of more years. If you take us to a Stargate we can all go to the SGC and Earth and you can see for yourself."

He wished he had his books with him or some actual scientific papers to back it up… he had a thought; when he got back to the SGC he'd see if General Hammond could authorize a CD or something he could make and bring with him. Visual representations and pictures of ancient skeletons, the pyramids, stuff like that to help prove his point when something like this would happen… and it'd happen again, he had no doubt of that. Some people might accuse him of making up the evidence but having a picture would help. There was that whole 'pictures are worth a thousand words' thing which seemed to be fairly universal.

"If you tell us the spatial coordinates of Earth in relation to our current position we might be able to take you there."

"I…" Daniel opened his mouth for a second and then closed it, rubbing his chin. "I'm not permitted to make that call, captain. Where are we _going_, anyways?"

"At the moment, back to the Colonies… most likely Picon or Caprica."

He nodded slowly. "And how long will it take for us to get there?"

"A while."

"I see… more of those FTL jumps?"

She nodded and he mentally cringed. The FTL jump when they'd first come aboard _Valkyrie_ had made him vomit on his lap and onto the Raptor. The pilots and Marines had cursed and then started laughing at him. Their doctor had doled out a bunch of pills to help with the nausea until their bodies adjusted to the jumps.

"Yes… but on the subject of who is from what world-"

"On that subject…" he was tired now and just wanted to go back to his quarters and sleep, even if Sam and Jack would bother him for an hour trying to get him to talk about what he and the captain discussed it would at least involve him lying down.

"Actually…" she opened that manila file folder that had been sitting on the edge of the desk for the last hour and a half. "You are from Kobol… not all of you, but you are. Well, your ancestors."

She slid him a number of those computer sheets. They were all on. He saw the first one. 'O'Neill, Jack: Colonel' and the second 'Ramos, Simon: Major' and the third and fourth and there were as many computer sheet as there were SG1 and SG8 team members. Each sheet had one of their names etched at the top.

With the manila folder in her hand she pulled out four more computer sheets.

"I told you we aren't from Earth. Our civilization dates back over twenty thousand years of recorded history…" she shrugged and sat on the edge of the table, "which I admit is a bit sparse past a few thousand years. We have records dating back nearly six thousand and some texts going back eight to nine… the Thirteenth Tribe left Kobol nearly forty-four hundred years ago… and even converting Kobolian years to Earth years how can you explain that? This comp sheet," she tapped one of them and text appeared, "will give you information on that."

"What are these other ones for with our names?" He held out his hands because he was unsure how to operate them. She showed him how to turn the page. "Thank you."

"Here…" she tossed down the last of the sheets. "This one… this one's mine. That one is Amorak's and this one is Nikon's. This fourth ones sums up the information and presents to you evidence… in the form of DNA, showing the highly conserved DNA sequences present in the all Colonials and present in you, but not all of you, which sort of means we're both right… it's a genealogy report… I take it you can read a DNA profile…"

* * *

**SGC, Earth**

**August 2001**

The tension in the conference room was thick. Describing it as palpable would have been a gross understatement as General Hammond sat across from the Tok'ra representatives with a glare which could have humbled a Goa'uld and frighten an Asgard. Unfortunately his old friend, Jacob Carter and his aide, Martouf, were the subject of his ire.

Under the table he clenched his fists and feeling his muscle shake, slowly released a breath he'd been holding in too long.

He wasn't making as much eye contact with Jacob as he should of. Instead he was focusing on a blue file folder flipped open and a mission report, stamped 'CLASSIFIED' in the header, and trying not to show any of his inner emotions. Focusing on that paper was enough to keep him from raising his voice at the two Tok'ra and one old friend.

Hammond sat, back straight and moved his right hand onto the table, his index finger tapping gently. His jaw clicked slightly as it clenched. He finished reading the report and flipped it shut.

Major Davis and Leuitenant Colonel Reynolds were seated to his right, Reynolds the closer of the two, and they were finishing their report. It was a Tok'ra debrief four pages long which was fairly dearth on the details and heavy on the politics… somewhat typical of Tok'ra reports to the SGC

While upset with the results of the mission Hammond would never allow his anger to cloud his judgment when it came to his friend across from him. He might get a little annoyed with the Tok'ra part of Jacob, which seemed to have moderated the US Air Force officer a bit when it came to risks, but he knew Jacob would answer any question to the best of his ability.

The High Council had always marginalized Selamk and was starting to do so a bit more now that he was blended with an American Air Force officer. There were some fairly significant differences in ideology when it came to fighting and sharing information and very few Tok'ra had come from the ranks of a military power capable of taking the fight to the Goa'uld like the US had done.

Mentally sighing he flicked those steel-colored eyes over to his friend. He did give Jacob the benefit of the doubt. Martouf, too. Both men and symbiotes would do anything in their power and within (or exceeding) their capabilities to try and get the teams back. Selmak had already expressed deep personal regret and shame at the faulty intelligence which had led to a partial mission failure. Despite successfully destroying the weapon facility losing two well-trained and invaluable teams took any sense of victory, twisted it violently and stomped it away.

General Hammond had made it clear in his communiqué to the Tok'ra High Council he had every intention of rescuing his men and since it was Tok'ra intelligence and their lobbying for the SGC to blow up the facility they had an obligation to aid the SGC and the US in recovering her servicemen.

After fighting the Goa'uld for so long the Tok'ra had become complacent in writing off operatives who were 'beyond rescue'. Occasionally they may mount a rescue like with Jacob, but rarely. Hammond was damn determined to not make the SGC like that; unless there was proof that SG1 and SG8 were dead then they would do anything, anything to get them back.

The SGC didn't have the resources to mount large rescue ops. It didn't have satellite imagery or a CVBG parked off the coast of some Third World nation to provide support. But SGC was expanding and could call on more forces than it could have last year (thanks in no small part to Senator Kinsey being too pre-occupied with his re-election due to a sudden primary challenge). General Hammond planned to devote as many resources as he possibly could to recovering those two teams.

Swallowing, Hammond pushed back and buried the lingering ill-thoughts towards the Tok'ra. Contempt wasn't going to get their men and women back and a poor attitude would do nothing but hinder the rescue operations.

He just wished that Murphy hadn't come in and screwed them over at the last minute; intelligence did really seem to be all that intelligent most of the time.

Whatever had gone wrong had gone wrong pretty spectacularly. For a bit of cryptic humor Hammond considered that whenever SG1 got ambushed, taken prisoner, or blew something up they always did it spectacularly. Hell, O'Neill had taken out the Big Man on his _first_ Stargate trip. _That_ sort of set the tone right there and Hammond had to inwardly smirk at that.

The last communications with the teams had been shortly before blowing the facility and then a little bit after. What was strange was that the radio signal was getting through… but it looked like they were being _jammed_. They'd sent a UAV through with a pre-programmed search pattern just in case they couldn't remote control it via the Stargate but the jamming had ceased at some point between SG1 and SG8 losing contact and the intervening hours.

After a moment of silence Jacob reached into his sand-colored tunic, pushed the chest sash slightly out of the way, and took out a small device. Hammond's eyebrow rose curiously as he set it down on the table. It was some sort of holographic projector.

"You won't get in trouble for showing this to us, Jacob?" Hammond looked down at the small little red stone. It was raised and sitting on the end of a rectangular device about twenty-five centimeters long. The ruby-red stone was roughly three centimeters in diameter and about one centimeter away from the far edge and half a dozen small oval buttons with tiny golden Goa'uld script took up the space on the rest of the device. "I know you've got to bat for us before and I appreciate it, but I don't want you to jeopardize your place on the High Council."

Major Paul Davis looked to his left at Colonel Reynolds, team commander for SG-16 and tensed. The two exchanged concerned looks about General (they still saw Jacob as a general) Carter's position as an emissary and de facto ambassador between the SGC and the Tok'ra.

"General Hammond_,"_ it was Selmak, "I've been going against High Council orders for centuries. They've stopped ordering me around and instead give me 'suggestions'… which might be orders, but… this is Jacob's daughter. And she means as much to me as she does to him." Selmak gesture down at the device and tapped in a four digit code. "And the SGC and SG1 with SG8 have been invaluable in helping, and teaching, us these last thirty months."

Selmak lowered his head.

"George, don't worry about us. We have to get Sam and SG1 and Eight back."

"I know," he nodded. The little ruby red stone was glowing, ready for the briefing, but Hammond had his information to share as well. "That's why we sent out a MALP." Jacob's eyebrow rose and Martouf leaned forward. "But it was destroyed. So we sent a UAV. It made it through, we'll show you that first… this is what it found." He pushed his chin out towards the large flat screen monitor at the end of the room.

The bright white lights dimmed until the room was bathed in a quiet yellow light and accented with looming shadows. Hammond grabbed the small remote from the corner of the table and pressing his thumb in a bit too hard onto the sideways triangular play button, started the UAV video.

The UAV video was snow on the screen at first but it soon resolved to show a lush forest of tall green trees dotting with meadows and fields. A few large birds were tenaciously poised to attack the UAV but wisely flew off and out of its path. On the ground, right at the gate was a landed _tel'tak_ and two death gliders. Maybe three dozen Jaffa were busy assembling heavy staff canon emplacements and bolting together orange-yellow barriers in what were the Jaffa equivalent of pill boxes. There were also a group of Jaffa to the left and right of the Stargate setting up what looked like some sort of minefield.

The unmanned vehicle banked up, the wormhole still engaged from the SGC side and the craft pilot by remote, and its camera zoomed in on what looked like two separate small forest fires. A second tel'tak was spraying some sort of yellow-green, basically puke-colored foam onto the closest fire. Three dots were off in the distance and the high resolution camera zoomed in. Death gliders were climbing into the atmosphere but seemed to stutter, stop, and turned back around.

The UAV continued for a few minutes as the death gliders began to move in, towards one of the pillars of black smoke. "We saw this. It looks like a death glider was taken down and here…" he fast forwarded the video, "it looks like a firefight."

They were lucky to get the UAV that far. A staff blast from the ground rocked the UAV as the superheated air disrupted the wind currents under the wings and as the pilot in the SGC control room attempted maneuvers they caught a fleeting glimpse of a massive yellow-orange ball of plasma and then nothing but static.

"Sweet Jesus," Reynolds cursed. He hadn't had time to review the UAV tapes yet. He'd been off world up until about an hour ago and after changing from a muddied and very wet uniform had gotten back from the showers and lockers just before the Tok'ra had arrived. "It looks like a massacre… who could've done that?"

Bodies were everywhere. The UAV camera zoomed in and blurred and then focused. The carnage and gruesome nature of the scene was even more apparent. Reynolds and everyone else had just seen bodies splayed out everywhere.

There was scorching all over and dozens of trees had been burned to cinders. The entire area was a kill zone. It looked like heavy artillery had been called in. There was probably thirty, maybe forty Jaffa. But so many were missing limbs and so many torsos were separated from bodies it was hard for anyone sitting there in the conference room to really figure out where one body ended and another began or which head and arm belonged to what decapitated body.

The ground was stained a red many shades darker than that ruby stone sitting on the conference table.

Major Davis leaned back and rubbed his hands up and down his forearms. He'd seen the video but it still sent a chill down his spine. "We sent the UAV out a few hours after they were reported overdo and we couldn't raise them on the radio. That was three days ago and we've had no contact since. All MALPs have been destroyed and the last three UAVs shot down before they get a hundred feet from the gate. The gate has been heavily reinforced and everything being set up in that video has been completed. As you can see… we don't think SG1 or 8 did this. They didn't have the equipment or the firepower. And judging by the bodies it looks like they were all trying to assault some position to the left of the screen."

Jacob looked as surprised as Reynolds and Martouf. "It looks like a gunship or something came in there and just tore them to pieces. There didn't seem to be any cauterizing like you'd see with staff weapons."

Reynolds nodded. "Um, yeah, over there," he pointed, "that creek bed and stone formation would have provided excellent cover from ground assault and the trees good cover from gliders." He leaned forward. "I've never seen anything like this though, sir." He looked at Hammond and shrugged.

Martouf tapped the last remaining button for Jacob on the holographic device. "That's actually why we're here. But I think this might explain a lot more, General." He swallowed and looked towards Jacob for permission to continue. Hammond stopped the video. "Here is what we recorded covertly."

The hologram activated.

At first there was nothing besides the blackness of space with a white-dotted starry sky and a blue-green marble of a world below it.

Some wreckage from a _Ha'tak_ came into view over a glistening blue-green orb. It's environment was almost Earth-like with the exception of it being slightly hotter due to two extra hours of daylight.

"This is the planet SG1 and SG8 were sent to- in Goa'uld it is called Geri'shak. We had a few operatives in the ranks of the Jaffa and Goa'uld there. This particular Tok'ra one was a pilot, a commander for the planet's glider contingent. He saw this…"

Jacob pressed his finger on the second to last button and ran it in a clockwise motion, speeding up the replay. The glider appeared to be on normal patrol, probably for hours and then…

Five massive warships suddenly blinked into existence in high orbit of the planet. There had been some pulse of blue-white light and then fire huge warships, two at the front which were at least a third to a half larger than the other three, pointed their noses at the planet and swiveled massive gun turrets towards the blue-green marble and towards the glider.

The SGC officers watched as the glider retreated to a safe distance and zoomed in his gun camera and watched. Dozens of small dart-like craft were fired from the sides of massive pods on the first two ships as over a dozen larger, squat looking ships shot out from the pods on the side.

Four of the darts began racing towards the glider and once again the Tok'ra agent retreated. They could hear him calling for reinforcements but once again he slowed and presented his nose to the newcomers who seemed more concerned with chasing him off than trying to engage him.

The nimble craft seemed to stop on a dime and pulled a one-eighty in a stunning display of maneuverability and behind the craft Hammond could see the glistening outline of blurry blue-white engine exhaust.

It was some weird game of cat and mouse, like these newcomers didn't want anyone to watch but didn't want to shoot anyone down.

The glider flew off, the darts broke off, and they continued their little dance for the next twenty minutes half a dozen times.

Three dozen more gliders had formed up with the Tok'ra agent's death glider. His maneuvers seemed choppy, like he was hesitating and trying not to engage. But the Tok'ra agents were deep cover and had to keep the local planet and space lords convinced they were loyal servants of their common System Lord. He gunned his glider forward and numbering close to forty, began their drives towards those craft.

He fired off about two dozen pot shots, as did his glider wing, but the darts were too far out and easily dodged. The five giant ships were maneuvering, a bit slow, but too far off from effective range of the glider's staff canons.

Eventually the staff blasts dissipated as the magnetic bottles holding the plasma as a coherent ball dissipated and the balls flashed out of existence like a light switch had been flicked.

Hammond could just barely see the little pin pricks of light erupt out from the turrets on those ships. Suddenly space became a storm of titanic explosions in front of the death gliders. The Tok'ra ordered his Jaffa to pull up and retreat.

"He thinks the ships fired warning shots to keep them away," Jacob explained.

The gliders turned back around and loitered. The gliders moved steadily closer and took their pot shots. He could hear the Tok'ra relaying orders to a squadron of _Al'Kesh_ on the far side of the planet, fifteen minutes away, to swing up over and under the poles while they prepared for an a skirmish. The Tok'ra told his co-pilot Jaffa attacking would be suicide but they would drive the invaders from their lord Sokar's world.

The surveillance device zoomed in closer to the ships until all the details were visible. Hammond could see tan-sand colored craft, boxy and with stubby wings landing in the gargantuan ship's bays. He leaned back in his chair and as his neck glanced against the cool leather, causing him to shiver slightly, frowned in confusion as a tel'tak maneuvered in and landed in one of the ship's bays.

It zoomed back out.

A second field of explosion ripped apart space a few hundred kilometers in front of the death gliders- who had continued their slow creep towards those big ships- as the last of their darts landed and the gun camera zoomed back in.

Then as suddenly as they'd appeared that blue-white light flashed and they were all gone. Disappeared. Vanished.

Hammond felt a chill on the back of his neck. He didn't have an exact size but just by eyeballing them as that shuttle landed, they were longer than a _Ha'tak_ and probably just a tad shorter. The General still realized his eyes were wide open as he felt the sting as they dried out. He quickly blinked and swallowed.

"Well… I don't know what to say."

That was Major Davis.

"Impressive?" Reynolds offered. "Or… wow?"

"You know who they are?" Hammond asked. "Those people might be responsible for attacking the Jaffa."

Jacob nodded. "It's possible. Our agent also reported that one of his Jaffa shot down a craft similar to those squat tan…" he wrinkled his nose then shrugged, "transports I guess, um, they shot one down. I think whoever that was there came to mount a rescue mission. The Jaffa also reported _two _separate groups of humans on the planet… one from a crash site and one from the weapon's facility who linked up and then defended that creek bed. I don't think those people were there to attack Sokar. I think they blundered into this mess, George." His eyes were a little wide. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

Hammond snorted softly. Indeed it did.

"Which is also the opinion of the Tok'ra High Council," Martouf said as he played back the image, froze it and then zoomed in. Tok'ra and Goa'uld imaging technology was so much more advanced than Earth's with a capability so impressive they could zoom in and see minute details on the side of the ship. Earth had been unable to replicate the technology, though improvements in cameras, video recording, and televisions were beginning to seep into the civilian market. "We've identified this language as what you would call 'Ancient Greek' and 'Latin.' It says the name of the ship is _Valkyrie_. We also identified the second ship of similar design possess the name _Gorgon._"

Except for Cronus and a few minor Goa'uld they'd yet to meet anyone who were as influenced by ancient Greco-Roman culture as by Egyptian and early Middle Eastern.

"Greek and Nordic reference," Major Davis said. "That's interesting… I mean, I'm not at the level of Doctor Jackson, and we could use him here, but I've read all his notes. Very few, if any cultures are influenced by more than one… uh, I guess, overall culture. It's usually either Egyptian or Mayan or Nordic or one singular deity to my understanding… the Goa'uld didn't really like to share."

Colonel Reynolds pointed at the writing on the warship. "The only Nordic references we've seen have been on Asgard protected planets or Asgard settled planets and never a mix like this."

"For the most part that's true." Jacob agreed. "But not even the Tok'ra have had the opportunity to explore all the worlds on the Stargate network… you ever heard of Ahmakiq and his Hornet Guard?" Major Davis shook his head and Reynolds frowned a silent 'no'. "Neither did we until about twenty-five years ago." Jacob put up his hands. "There's a lot of Goa'uld out there. For all we know Cronus might have been influencing these people and then abandoned them and the Asgard came in," he shrugged, "I don't know."

"Do you have any idea who these people are?" Hammond pointed at the ship. "We've never encountered anyone with ships like those. The industrial capacity and capability needed for those ships…"

"That bay's the size of a carrier, George." Jacob's hands came up in an 'I don't know' gesture. "We're stumped. This is like some sort of battleship-carrier hybrid; sort of like a _Ha'tak _but the design is nothing close to anything we've seen before. Up until this point we've never seen anyone capable of building ships like the Goa'uld, except for a handful a relative handful of planets. The Goa'uld also don't travel too often to that region of space… a few have been setting up little bases here and there, but not too many. We did find a few other marking, maybe some sort of symbol for who these people are. Martouf." Jacob gestured for his aid to take over.

Martouf leaned towards the holographic projector and typed in another set of commands. The images cycled quickly and stopped on the most prominent and detailed image of the large gray ship with the two pods. It rotated until the dorsal aspect was visible. A little red box appeared and outlined a circular crest.

It was centered in the midline of the ship between two turrets and right where the main hull seemed to narrow before expanding again into a roughly triangular-shaped bow.

Martouf's head bowed and his posture shifted slightly as Lantash took over. His right ear flicked slightly back in a little tick Lantash had developed over the years. "This seems to be their symbol. We cross referenced it with our database and were unable to come up with a decisive match. We did find half a dozen similar symbols. Cross referencing with the database the SGC provided on Earth culture seems to indicate it is a stylized version of an Earth bird called you call the 'phoenix.'"

"That would fit if it's some Goa'uld impersonating the Greeks or Romans," Davis observed.

Reynolds nodded. And reached forward, point at the various weapons mounts. "These are pretty impressive. These here," he pointed to a small cluster in front of the phoenix, "looks like VLS tubes. These small guns could be point defense weapons. Are the turrets energy weapons?"

Jacob shook his head. "We're still analyzing the imagery and readings from the glider. But don't expect much, Colonel. Our agent could only use very basic equipment. Active sensor systems would alert the local Hasykos and alert the Jaffa pilots to our infiltration attempts."

Colonel Reynolds motioned for the device and Martouf moved the projector a little closer. He looked at the large TV screen, black as it was turned off, and imaged the last scene they'd all watched with the UAV swooping over that last site where the Jaffa had been massacred. Reynolds scratched behind his ear and his jaw muscles clenched slightly as he thought of contingencies.

"Are we assuming they were rescued or were taken prisoner?" He asked, turning to the General.

"At this point, Colonel, we have to assume they were taken prisoner but also consider they might have been rescued going with this new information." Hammond sensed his worry. O'Neill and Reynolds were fairly good friends and knew the two had gone fishing a few times together. "With the Tok'ra agent saying there's no sign of SG1 or SG8 then I think we could say with certainty they were at least _taken _by these people. Assume the worse but hope for the best." He shifted in his seat. Something had been bothering him. "Why don't the Goa'uld travel there?"

"I don't know." Jacob admitted readily. "They've never really gone there… they sent ships there thousands of years ago and they never returned. That's all I know. The Tok'ra sent our own ships out but we never found anything. It's barren, a galactic wasteland compared to everywhere else."

"Sir," Reynolds looked the General in the eyes, "I'd like to lead my team and a few others and put out feelers to the contacts we have out there." He lifted his right hand towards the Stargate and then back at the projection. "If we can maybe figure out who these people are we might be able to get a Stargate address."

"That sounds reasonable, Colonel. You can take your team and we'll also reinforce with SG7, 9, and 14. Major Young has SG-13 on the Obranian home world doing research but we'll recall them… this takes priority. If you need to split the teams to cover more ground, do so. But we need to act fast. There's a time table in these situations people."

General Hammond remembered all the other times that SG1 had been captured. Most recently it was with the Bedrosians on P2X-416. He'd read the debriefing on that mission and had had the unfortunate 'pleasure' of trading jabs and subtle threats with some 'Commander Rigar.' Hopefully whoever these people were if they had the SG teams they'd be far more amicable and release them.

He would be making a telephone call to Secretary Simms after this briefing though. He and the President had already expressed their concern over the MIA status of SG1 and SG8 and wanted them found ASAP. Hammond already knew Simms, who was a self-admitted Stargate junkie and read every report cover to cover, would direct him to see if these newcomers could be potential allies against the snakes.

Major Davis, with his hands on the table, raised an index finger for a point. "We could recall the teams off base. SG17, 18, and SG19 could be made available."

"They're training more Marines and Rangers." Hammond let the idea ruminate for a moment. "If we recall too many teams then that could seriously hurt our training pipeline. And we desperately need those companies if we're going to increase our operations against Sokar. Four teams should be enough men. If we need to assault a position then we can call in more."

He did entertain the thought of recalling those teams. They were south at Fort Carson training up two companies of Rangers and Marines. After this mission SG1 was supposed to rotate down there and provide instruction for SEAL Team Nine.

"George is right, Major. We have a few dozen Tok'ra commandos and intelligence officers who can join your teams… that also reminds me, George," he put a hand up on the table closer to his friend, "Lieutenant Cole is eager to stretch her legs after the blending and she's ready for duty. I also dispatched a few groups to some of our old stomping grounds. Martouf objected a little bit," he smiled over at his aide, "but I sent Marteen to one of the rougher planets to get some information… Lucia, if you've heard of it?"

Hammond shook his head and Davis and Reynolds followed.

Martouf explained; "It's an industrial and manufacturing world run by criminals and mercenaries and serves as a neutral trading world for the Goa'uld by treaty… they also go there to hire guns and buy technology. It is also populated by assassins, drug traffickers, and many other undesirable individuals. Lantash had some experiences there with the criminal Syndicates in his prior hosts- captured attempting to buy technology."

Jacob decided on a real world example with a little cryptic humor thrown in. "It's sort of like the galactic Somalia mixed with North Korea if that makes sense. Basically, George, you won't find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy."

The general grinned and massaged his brow following Jacob's chuckle. Davis and Reynolds got the pop culture joke but Martouf was frowning and looking between the humans and at Jacob. Lantash figured it was some human thing and mentally filed it away under another one of those weird memes and sayings; Colonel O'Neill tended to say similar things. Martouf and Lantash had observed that SGC personnel, including Lt. Cole, were quite fond of 'pop culture' references from famous movies and television shows.

Major Davis straightened. "Just one man?"

Jacob conceded Davis had a point but Selmak took over. "Lucia, while considered lawless by the Goa'uld, is run with what you would describe as an 'iron fist' with criminal syndicates similar to some of your pariah nation-states. The city in which the Stargate is located is considered neutral territory by the criminal leaders. Marteen is, as Jacob may say, an 'independent contractor' or as one may put it, a mercenary. He is Tok'ra but comes and goes as he pleases. He has a sophisticated network of contacts on hundreds of worlds that he has built up over nearly two millenia. His work with the Tok'ra… it is… a tenuous relationship but he does listen. Sometimes."

Davis was slightly concerned about the description of Marteen. It sounded almost like some Tok'ra NID equivalent. "Can you explain anymore?" He turned towards the General and then back to Selamk. "Selmak, I don't mean to imply disrespect but it's just that the explanation makes him sound like someone who may do things that are unsanctioned, extreme?"

"Major Davis is right, Selmak." Hammond paused for a moment to recheck that his words would be diplomatically correct. "We've had our own problems in the past, as you know, with rogue teams. Can Marteen be trusted to not go too far?"

Selmak glanced down at the table for a moment as he considered Hammond's question. Jacob had expressed his own regrets over the NID's operations over the last few years which had threatened to destroy numerous alliances the SGC had forged with other worlds, the Tok'ra included. Both Selmak and Jacob had expressed reservations about Marteen and his past but the High Council had adopted the 'see no evil' attitude with the Tok'ra agent. Selmak had been able to convince Jacob to trust Marteen for now.

The deep voice of the Tok'ra spoke. "While many in the Tok'ra dislike Marteen's methods we cannot argue with his results. He has started wars between numerous System Lords and has personally assassinated, by last count, over three hundred Goa'uld of varying importance in the galaxy." Davis nodded his acceptance of Selamk's explanation. "We don't ask things of him lightly. If SG One and Eight are out there then he can find them."

* * *

**City of Ir Ibas, Lucia**

**Earth Date August 2001**

A man was bound to a chair in a dimly lit and chilly room. He looked around and saw the glittering eyes of the woman who'd drugged him, kidnapped him, and bound his hands and legs. His vision was still cloudy but he could see just enough through the dim light to see the whites of her teeth and her lips curled into an impish smile, with the left lip raised just a little higher to make it a smirk.

He groaned as his muscles ached. His chest felt heavy, like a weight was crushing him. He tried to move his legs and arms but couldn't. Confused, shocked, and maybe a little scared he looked up; his own eyes betraying those emotions.

"It's geris gel. It'll keep your legs and arms paralyzed. Except for your left leg…" The woman stepped a little closer and took something out of her pocket, a small plastic vile with a red liquid. She held it in front of him, about half a meter in front of his nose, between her index finger and thumb. The little back and forth wagging was taunting him. "When you put it on the skin it turns into a gel, it seeps down and inhibits nerve conduction… it makes interrogation so much easier. And you won't end up hurting yourself…" she walked forward, her boot heels clicking on the wood floor and she circled him. She rested the vial on his shoulder and he tracked her with his eyes as long as he could until she was behind him. "You can feel everything else, though."

Up and down his spine he felt shivers as she blew a warm breath into his ear. She ran her hand down the front of his tunic, over his silvery chest armor, and down. Her fingers traced a circle around the seal on his armor as they made their way down his torso, to his lap. She wrapped a hand between his legs and stroked him with her thumb.

She stopped. "You like that…" he could feel the moisture on his neck from her warm breath. "I didn't paralyze that part… obviously." She was back around and grinning again.

"You're a fucking bitch!" He spat out at her. His lungs worked fine and the spit sailed through the air, landing on her vest, in the center of her cleavage. "My men will fucking cut off your head and fuck your neck you bitch!"

She chuckled. "Well… that's pleasant. And so very eloquent. 'Fuck my neck'?" She swiped it off with her hand and then wiped her hand on his crotch.

Buried deep down in the man she'd tied up, he loved this in some sick, perverted way.

She was wearing a black jacket with a collar that came right up to her jaw line and opened like a V to a spot immediately above her sternum. A flap came from the left to the right with zipper that was slightly off center and angled in until it hit the centerline right below her waist. Her pants here made of a leather-like brown substance and while not tight, weren't loose. Two small cargo pockets were mid-thigh and a pistol was resting quietly on the mid-right thigh.

The jacket was a special weave capable of deflecting bullets, knives, and zat'nik'tel blasts. His men hadn't figured that out in time. Now they lay dead and burned to nothing but ash and dust.

She was his kind of woman; rough and capable of putting out as much as he put in. He would have found the gun slung to her right thigh downright sexy if the bitch hadn't drugged him and tied him up and made a fucking fool out of him.

"What the fuck do you want?"

"I already have what I want." She lifted up her jacket and he saw the hilt of a knife. "You know what this is?" She grabbed the ornate handle, decorated in little gold script and carved out of wood and pressed a stud. The blade edge began to glow an aquamarine blue. "It's a blade I took from a kill… ever seen one like it?"

The man shook his head. "Don't fucking play games… when my-"

She cut him off with a shush and by extending the hand the knife was in, holding it right at his throat. He could feel the heat from the blade.

"I won't play games if you don't. Your men aren't coming. They're dead. You fucked us over. You _do not fuck us over_ and live." She walked forward. She was tall enough she could straddle him while he sat and she lowered herself onto his lap. "I would love to kill you for what you've done in the past, but Netan only gives a fuck about what you did last month…" she leaned back in to whisper. "You stole half a ton of naquadah from us, blew up one of our ships… and killed a good friend of mine, and then tried to sell the stuff to the fucking Goa'uld and pin it as an inside job."

There was a moment of silence between the two before she laid her hands on his shoulder with the blade still glowing.

"What do you want me to say? _Sorry?_" He snickered and rolled his eyes. He leaned in. Looking at her eyes he started laughing. "You're just going to get fucking killed; this is your execution as much as mine. In the end you're just a murdering, psychopathic bitch."

"You're definitely wrong on the first one… the second is a bit closer." She slid off and was on her knees, back straight, almost arched slightly, and looking up at him. She took the blade and cut a line straight down the inseam of his trousers. "This is an _Ashrak_ blade, by the way. It cauterizes the wound as it cuts but also bathes the nerves in a slight amount of poison." She cupped his sac in one hand and wrapped her thumb around his cock and pulled out. He winced but she kept her grip light. "I would have killed you just because Netan ordered it. But since you also raped the women and girls in your city this makes it so much… _better."_

With a single swipe the man in the chair was no longer a man. She stood up as he yelled and shrieked in pain and she plunged the knife into his left leg for momentary safe keeping. His shaft was bloody in her hands but the blade had sealed the wound. It smelled putrid as burnt flesh and hair often did.

She stepped to the side and he threw up. Spittle and vomit dribble from his chin. Her executioner took a small handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his mouth. It was humiliating.

She let the handkerchief fall to the ground. Under the weight of spit and partially digested food chunks it fell straight down next to the man's foot.

Suddenly and violently she grabbed him by the neck and pinched his chin. He fought her but she pulled harder. With one hand she pulled his mouth open and the other thrust his cock and sac into his mouth. She slammed his mouth shut, shattering teeth and she grabbed the _Ashrak's_ blade in his thigh, swiping it out at an angle and tearing through half a thigh of arteries, veins, and a femur.

"You fucked the Lucian Syndicate. Now it's my turn to fuck you."

She drove the knife straight into his chest. No known armor could stop an activated _Ashrak_ blade. It was like a plasma torch on skin. It burned through muscle and skin and opened the sternum. Instantly the man choked, seized, and his head slumped forward as his organs shut down. The knife tore through the heart and she pressed it down, slowly, until the hilt hit bone.

Her task for Netan was almost complete… she pulled the knife out and cut off both his hands and tossed them onto the table on the right side of the room. They would be a warning to not screw with the Lucian Syndicate.

"So…" she muttered as she deactivated the blade and returned it to her hidden hilt. "I would have asked you to join in, but I know you always enjoyed watching… I could always clear the table," she cracked a grin, still staring at the bloodied and gruesome remains of her victim before her.

The man's tongue, which he'd bitten off when she slammed his mouth shut, fell out onto his lap, followed by the severed genitals.

"You still seem to enjoy _being_ watched."

She turned around. She brushed some light brown hair that had fallen loose from her bun back behind her ear.

"Marteen of Karchaw, you are as handsome as ever…" there was a brief pause, "or should I say Nyklos? I'm not sure if I could classify a snake as 'handsome'…"

Marteen, or specifically the host Nyklos, was thin and athletic like all Tok'ra, and about half a dozen centimeters taller than her. He wore the common clothing of some of the Lucian merchants. He had what amounted to the combat boots the security forces would wear, tan cargo pants, and a thin black jacket- armored- with an armored gauntlet of gray with gold and blue etching and writing on the left forearm secured with three brown leather straps and gold buckles. His hands were concealed with brown gloves.

She could see little bulges under the glove as well as the ankle holster for a pistol. His weight was slightly off and knew he also had… a knife tucked into his waistband.

"Commander Kiva zal Jur, beautiful as always…"

"I would say thanks, but I'm not sure if I'm talking to the big snake or the little snake…" Kiva laughed and Marteen flashed his eyes to indicate it was now the Tok'ra speaking. Commander Kiva zal Jur dus Huran let her hand fall to her hip as she rested it on her pistol. She felt the cool and glossy texture of the wood grip and stepped towards the Tok'ra. Seductively, she let her hips sway left and right as she walked up to him "What brings you here?" She laid a hand on his chest.

"Urgent business on behalf of the Tok'ra and Tau'ri-" he started in the deep and artificial-sounding voice of a Tok'ra.

At the mention of 'Tau'ri' she withdrew her hard quickly. It was like touching him burned at the mere utterance of a name which had become a curse.

"Fuck," she snorted and turned her back. Her muscles tensed as she pushed her shoulders back. Kiva stared over at the severed hands and flexed and extended her fingers until the knuckles cracked and popped. "The fucking Tau'ri… you had to come here for _them_. Why should I help?" She almost spat their name. It was a curse on many worlds now.

"They're taking down the System Lords."

"And in the process they're creating instability…" she saw him give her a surprised look. Here was a mercenary complaining about instability? Ridiculous. "What they're doing is good for business in the short term and bad in the long term if someone worse takes over and decides to shut us down. Or the gods forbid, a do-gooder, like them… people who have no fucking idea how dangerous this galaxy truly is." She rubbed her hands up and down her forearms. "I don't know where you've been, Marteen, but you don't hear the rumors of what's out there."

That was always the concern of every Syndicate on Lucia; shutdown. They maintained independence, nominally at least, because the Goa'uld were too fractured. Lucia had a massive population by galactic standards and in the old days of glory had been one of the more powerful empires until Ra had exerted his dominion over the System Lords and crushed all known threats to the Goa'uld Dynasty. Since the Syndicates were criminals and drug traffickers and gun runners and mercs they had no real friends and thrived on instability… controlled instability. Known instability fostered by the feudal nature of the System Lords and other alien races who liked to fight and fight.

Marteen stepped forward, passed the gruesome kill and stopped beside her. They were in one of the Lucia Syndicate's safe houses, or something like that, on the eighteenth floor of a tall building on the outskirts of Ir Ibas, the largest city on the planet. It was a massive metropolis that had once been capitol to the independent Lucian Unity Federation, a multi-planet alliance with a population in the billions. The Goa'uld had killed a significant number during their conquest and occupation but had freed the planet in some old and convoluted treaty no one really remembered. Now it was a breeding ground for mercenaries and for people to develop technology, weapons, or drugs without the hindrances of regulation, morality, or ethics.

While the Syndicates were the true rulers of the planet a weak and ineffective provisional government 'ruled' over the whole world. The Syndicates had ironically modeled themselves after the System Lords. The whole kept one from becoming too powerful and the provisional government collected resources and technology to trade to the Goa'uld for the planet's independence… but the Syndicates did plenty under the noses of corrupt officials.

Even Goa'uld overseers were easily bribed with technology or the lending of one of the planets crack commando teams for one of the greedy and egotistical Goa'uld to take out one of their snake competitors.

That's what made living under the watchful, but distance eye of the Goa'uld tolerable; they were so greedy they could be easily bribed and so egotistical they could be tricked into attacking someone set-up to look 'weak.'

The safe house was on the outskirts of the city. From here the two could see the skyline and the tens of thousands of little square lights dotting the buildings. A little over ten million lived in the sprawling urban expanse and another fifteen in the surrounding countryside. In the distance a large cargo ship's green-glowing ion engine- a Hebridian ship going by its silhouette on the planet's two moons- rose silently into the sky and disappeared quickly as it jetted into space. A second and third ship began rising as a fourth, glowing red from the atmosphere, descended towards the city to offload more cargo.

"So what's going on out there?"

"Besides your buddies screwing everyone in the galaxy over?" She scowled at him. "You've heard the rumors about Sokar?" Marteen nodded. "The System Lords are preparing for war and not just with him. Something's going on out there." She pushed her chin up towards the sky and rested on the railing. "I hear rumors that the System Lords were concerned about a series of attacks along the Outer Anu'et Arm…" she sighed, "I don't know. You can't put stock in rumors until they're confirmed, right?"

Commander Kiva made her way onto the balcony of the building and stepped out onto the terrace. The planet was in its summer month but a raging river which ran on the southern edge of the city cooled the air around them.

Even at this height she could hear the roar of the water as it splashed against rocks far below and across a field. It helped to drone out the sounds of the highway and maglevs running from the urban outskirts to the city centers.

Below her, in this section of the city, tenements and slums were supreme. The wealthy lived closer to the center of the city where Netan's men protected them. A dozen kilometers away a bright and glistening city of skyscrapers, rooftops gardens, and domed buildings glittered under the yellow and red moons while here the streets were filled with druggies, beggars, and thieves. The streets were dirty and crowded. No one came here unless they had to.

She looked up from the gloom towards the night sky, for those little glowing pinpricks of white in the darkness but the light pollution from the large city in the distance and right below, blocked the stars.

Kiva turned and leaned towards him. "But why are you here for the Tau'ri?"

Nyklos took off his gloves and shoved them into a pocket. Kiva grinned at the _kara kesh_ ribbon device on his right forearm- the bulge under the gloves. Not many Tok'ra would use them unless undercover.

She knew he always carried it with him or had some sort of weapon. The gauntlet on his other arm was a weapon in itself as well. Goa'uld technology was based on some sort of telepathic link facilitated by naquadah- the science was confusing- and his gauntlet held a computer, a communication stone, and a small modified _zat'nik'tel_ diode emitter activated by mere thought.

Kiva admired the golden and glittering _kara kesh_ but not even a ribbon device compared to having an _Ashrak_ blade and she remembered that he still claimed to not believe her no matter how many times she told him the story of how she had acquired it.

He detached a small stone from the top of the device and set it on the balcony.

The stone projected a holographic recording of strange ships, large ships with a pod on each side, suddenly appearing over one of Sokar's world. They launched some sort of space fighter. The video moved quickly and within thirty seconds had finished with the ships disappearing.

"We provided the Tau'ri with intelligence on a weapons facility in which Sokar was developing more powerful canons for his _Ha'taks_. The Tau'ri successfully destroyed the facility but as you can see, someone else came along. One of those small _tel'tak_-like ships crashed after being shot down-" she groaned at the predictability of the Goa'uld "-and those people came to rescue their pilots. I promised Selmak I would find them."

"Selmak? Hasn't she been blended with a Tau'ri… one of their generals?"

"_He_, now, and yes, Selmak was blended with a Tau'ri general whose daughter was on the planet-"

"Carter," she cut him off. "So that means Carter, O'Neill, Jackson, and the traitor Jaffa Teal'c. So you lost SG1?" She chuckled and tried to hide it with her hand but then patted him condescendingly on the shoulder. "Good job." She turned and leaned with an elbow on the balcony so she could face him. "I'm inclined to send the Tau'ri a message wishing their SG1 a treacherous and horrific journey in the Afterlife. You think they would go for that?" She looked down and smiled to herself but her expression changed quickly as she felt those cool and hard eyes watching the back of her head. Despite her feelings on the Tau'ri she would at least hear her old 'friend' out. "So where was the planet?"

The eyes of the host flashed and the deep voice of Marteen returned. "The mission was in the Tanshaw Traverse roughly five hundred light years rimward of the Sirkan Cluster and fifty above the Cluster midpoint."

Her eyes widened at the mental image of a galactic map. Her mind flashed a red 'X' over the entire Traverse. "Is Sokar some sort of fool?" Her tongue clicked. "Goa'uld never travel into the Traverse. No one does."

It was millions of cubic light years of barren space, for the most part, where no Goa'uld had traveled in millennia. No Chappa'ai address was known to exist for those worlds except to a few System Lords. It also fell rimward of the Tau'ri home world.

Marteen swiped his hand. "Legends and myths, Kiva. The Goa'uld for all their arrogance and egoism are incredibly superstitious. They create their own monsters to explain their defeats and failures."

She was tired. Capturing a criminal operative from a rival syndicate, killing a dozen men and women in getting to him, then dragging him back, slicing off his cock, feeding it to him, then stabbing him in the heart was exhausting work.

"What do you want me to do, Marteen?" She sounded like she just wanted the Tok'ra to get to the point and make his request for help.

He side stepped a little closer an she turned back to face the city until their shoulders were just barely touching.

"I need you to help me find the SGC personnel."

"Netan won't allow that. The Oranians tribes just broke into a civil war again. We've been hired to run guns and assassinate some of their leaders." She checked her wrist watch. "In fact, I have a shuttle leaving in six hours for another job… unless you have something for me I can take to Netan and convince him to contract with you."

The Tok'ra nodded and from a pocket produced an orange rectangular crystal with a small knob at one end. "Give this to the _Khusad_." Marteen softly grabbed her hand and pressed it in. She gave him a look as he retracted is hand, brushing her smooth skin with his thumb.

She could see that tell-tale sign of a smile he was hiding as he looked away. "So what is it? Worth it?"

"It's schematics for a small Goa'uld outpost around the Bet'at Nebula. If you can get a ship you can land on the planet and steal a cache of Goa'uld weaponry and shield generators. The currency you can exact from that would be immense… and I know of a little world that hasn't discovered how to use their Chappa'ai yet, is sparsely populated, and could be an excellent place to set up a naquadah mine…"

Her eyebrows rose. "So… you'll give us weapons and naquadah mines… that could be worth it." Kiva went back inside and Marteen followed. "What do your masters have to say about this?"

"They told me to find the SGC personnel. How I complete my mission is my own decision."

Kiva snickered and brushed her nose. _That_ was the same Marteen she'd known for decades.

"I have to take these to Netan. Meet me at my apartment in a few hours and I should have an answer for you." She brushed the severed hands into a plain satchel and didn't even hesitate as she grabbed Marteen by the jacket and pulled him in for a passionate 'welcome back' kiss. "Even if Netan says no…" she pushed him back and walked backwards to the door, passed the dead man's body, "we can still have fun tonight."

* * *

AN: Thanks again to all those who've reviewed and added the story to favorites/alerts!

To answer a few questions... Baltar's still going to be a bit of a jerk but not so slimy for the time being

At this point the Colonial reaction to Earth is tempered by the threat of the Goa'uld and having two unknown enemies is going to be worrisome. There will be some more interaction between the Colonials and SG personnel in the next chapter.

On the review/statement on weapons and power... I guess I should get the firepower issue out of the way because I know there's strong opinions on it. I haven't listed firepower and generally don't say "XX megatons" in my stories. I don't really like doing that. The story is more of a fusion rather than "wormhole opens up and two universe meet." The Colonials and SGverse are in the same universe which means compatibilities need to exist. I don't believe in curbstomps for either side. Each side has some decisive advantages and disadvantages. I believe some won't like the way I go with the power/strength between say _Valkyrie_ and a _Ha'tak_ or any other battlestar or somethingstar. I will say this; a _Ha'tak_ will not be one-offing battlestars or rampaging through fleets. It will take more Colonial ships to take on a _Ha'tak_ at first.

**Important Update on 2 May**: I was reading some of the reviews and for those who are now just reading the chapter on the 20,000 years bit... that's the date from the episode _Hero_ which was listed on Adama's service record. It lists their current year as some point in the 23,100s. The Sacred Scrolls are much like the Bible. The Bible was written over a period of time but there is still recorded history prior to the Bible being written.

What does the 23,000 number represent? Could it be like our system AD/BC? Or when they think they were created or could it just be some major event which forced them to being marking time from that major event? As far as canon explanations go we don't know what the 23,100 date represents so I'll be making up my own explanation.

Only one part of the Scrolls were ever mentioned to my recollection and that was the Book of Pythia. There were most likely other books as part of the Scrolls.

As for Ancient Kobolian history we know next to nothing about it. We know next to nothing about the Colonies from BSG for that matter and even Caprica is giving very little other than making the Colonies some sort of amalgam of American in Space with the Roaring Twenties, the Nineteen Fifties, and a bit of the 21st Century all mixed into one. So I'm going to be having to make up a lot of the history.

And for clarification this is what Upland said: "I told you we aren't from Earth. Our civilization dates back over twenty thousand years of recorded history…" she shrugged and sat on the edge of the table, "which I admit is a bit sparse past a few thousand years. We have records dating back nearly six thousand and some texts going back eight to nine… the Thirteenth Tribe left Kobol nearly forty-four hundred years ago… and even converting Kobolian years to Earth years how can you explain that? This comp sheet," she tapped one of them and text appeared, "will give you information on that."

The Scrolls aren't stated as being 20,000 years old.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: There's some changes to _Caprica_ canon which will be used later on in the story.

* * *

**BS-41 **_**Valkyrie**_

**Deep Space**

Laying on her back and wiping sweat from her brow, Jessica Amorak cursed as her forearm slid across a sharp corner and cut into her skin. She threw down her PDA and as she watched it skid across the deck of the _tel'tak_ it hit one of the golden colored bulkheads, spun, and came to a stop as a boot gently stepped down on it. She took her other hand and wiped off the blood then wiped her hand on her still-clean tank top without acknowledging the new presence in the Goa'uld shuttle.

The area around her was the complete opposite of the clean appearance she'd somehow been able to maintain; half a dozen different computers were all sitting on consoles or the floor and hooked into the Goa'uld shuttle with data link cables to anything that looked like a port. A stack of computer sheets was in the pilot's chair, a few more burned out laptops in the co-pilots chair, and all sorts of tools to monitor power levels, radiation, and much more were all arranged on the floor or on thin wire racks which had been set up fairly impromptu.

As soon as the shuttle had been brought aboard the spooks had gotten to work. They'd combed the thing in a little less than three hours for any tracking devices (fully aware the technology may not be detectable) or for signs of bombs or rigging. Teal'c had been more than helpful instructing the spooks and some of the techs from the _Argus_, requisitioned for the task from stealth ship maintenance, on what to look for. Major Carter had helped with tracking devices.

A shuttle blowing up inside a ship SG1 and SG8 were in was not something they really wanted. They'd given the minimal amount of help, still unsure at that point if the Colonials could be trusted.

With the information Major Carter had provided it had let Amorak and the spooks get a better starting point on how to sync the Goa'uld computers with their own. It had taken about eighteen hours and over a dozen of _Valkyrie_'s embarked tech and intelligence division personnel, plus a few poached from _Gorgon_ and _Attia_ to figure out how to interface with the Goa'uld computer crystals without blowing out the chip sets in the Colonial computers.

And that was about all their progress; not short circuiting their computers. The data being transferred was corrupt and garbled, completely worthless and the links tended to randomly disconnect every few minutes to an hour.

At this point Jessica Amorak was frustrated and that was in no small part to having not slept in nearly thirty hours. This just wasn't working. Her skills with a computer were pretty damn impressive, and while not one to get too big a head, she'd toss her lot in the top dozen or so in the Colonies. She doubted if even her father could have gotten CORA to where she and Baltar had gotten it in so short a time. Failure wasn't her thing; the Fleet paid her a hefty purse for her services, in addition to her basic pay as a major because she didn't fail. When _others_ failed she was brought in to fix it! Her algorithms had theoretically increased the efficiency of the penetration aides Colonial missiles used by nearly nine percent!

Even working on this for less than a week and even it being completely alien the feeling of just not knowing what to do was completely… alien.

"Careful, these things are expensive." She saw Captain Nikon from the corner of his eyes as he walked over, his gleaming boots shining in the dull light of the shuttle. She ompfed as he dropped the light-weight PDA on her stomach. "How long you been here?"

"I didn't go to sleep." Amorak kept working. Nikon couldn't see what her hands were doing but she was elbow-deep in something. "Obviously." She added in a dry, annoyed tone.

Premie chuckled. "Yeah, I kind of figured that." And he kept himself from commenting on her less than cheery attitude. "I take it what… five hours?" An apathetic and muffled 'meh' was all he heard and he dropped down to sit on his heels. "I don't know," he sounded chipper, for her benefit mostly, "but isn't this more excited than finding Cylons?"

"Um… yeah, learning the galaxy is full of narcissistic snakes and massive alien empires bent on fraking the galaxy over… no, I'd rather have just found the fraking Cylons so we could get a bead on what they're doing. Now we have the Cylons and these snake things to worry about. It's not like I didn't have enough shit to worry about without this." She hit the underside of the console and muttered a string of curses no Fleet officer should under her breath.

Honestly she would have been excited to just find a Cylon, capture a Cylon, and test CORA on it. Now that mission was FUBAR and tossed on the backburner. Months and months working on CORA and finally a real chance to test it on a current gen Cylon and that goes to Fraked Up City.

Everyone involved in the project knew CORA worked just fine on the old Cylons they had locked away in deep, dark dungeon-like bunkers in the Colonies in secret military bases but it was completely unknown how a current generation Cylon would react to it. The original Cylons were based off a generative program Daniel Graystone had created nearly eighty years ago. Without that Cylons and Spartoi would have been as dumb as any house robot and incapable of mimicking human capabilities and creating the complex cyber net connections within their MCP which allowed them to think constructively and critically outside of their programming.

Generative AI coupled with the MCP was like the robotic equivalent of Prometheus bringing fire to the huddled masses of Kobol. It had completely rewritten the rule book and made the deployment of true robot armies and navies a possibility.

Amorak, staring up at the shining rods which passed as Goa'uld computer chip sets snickered to herself at how far she and Baltar had come on CORA, how their hopes had been raised that they would finally see the vindication they had earned and prove their multi-billion cubit program was worthwhile.

There'd been setbacks, major setbacks she remembered. CORA had existed since before the Cylon War and had its roots as a Gemenese defenses project for the _Diadalos Pact_ to use against the Caprican, Picon, and Scorpion Cylons. Once all the robots Colony-wide went berserk and into killbot mode the Gemenese had revealed the program to Caprica and for twelve years everything they tried failed. Their cyber war efforts were always wanting and they seemed to always be a step behind the Cylons. Until about five years ago when major advances had been made on CORA, setting the stage for Amorak and Baltar to refine it to its current level of predicted readiness.

And the big secret wasn't CORA itself but how she and Baltar had managed to make it work. While the Admiral in charge had given his reluctant thumbs up it was still illegal under Colonial law and illegal even for the military to dabble in what she and Baltar had. But they'd had to do it.

CORA could be the Kobolian Sword of Stars, their secret weapon to win the war everyone (with the proper clearance) expected to be coming or CORA could be as useless as firing spit wads against a battlestar.

Jessica Amorak frowned as her train of thought, or specifically, her distracting imagination, was interrupted.

"I guess you're right… have you figured anything out?"

Once he heard the question pass his lips he instantly regretted thinking it, let alone asking it. He could see her body tense and there was a little pause in her movements which would have been completely missed had he not been looking for it.

"Have I figured anything out?" The repeated question was asked with a snarl. "Have I figured anything out?" Her voice was raised and filled with annoyance which instantly switched to frustration and teetered on that line, threatening to dip into anger. "I'm trying to figure out a fraking interface for an alien computer system that uses something we've never even experimented with an alien OS and computer language…" she groaned. "I feel like Prometheus has me bent over a console and hear him just laughing, whispering taunts in my ear me as he fraks me."

The Raptor pilot closed his eyes and smiled, adding in a small head shake. He reached out to touch her but brought his hand back at the last second, forming a fist and then resting his hands on his knees. He went down to his back and shimmied himself under to get a better look at what she was working on.

He was close to her but left a few centimeters from his shoulder to hers.

Nikon completely understood her frustration. It was basically the scientist version of being shot down. Getting a Raptor blown out from under your ass was a black mark no matter the circumstances; pilots, like ship COs, were responsible. He wouldn't have to face a formal board of inquiry but the Commander would have to issue a report to Admiral Marak and Marak's Chief of Staff would probably send a representative for a chit chat. Losing a Raptor-S was a pretty Big Deal.

He could see how Amorak not being able to figure this out was her own version of a Big Deal. He knew he could give her the 'no one expects you to work miracles' line but it'd be taken as just empty platitude and probably accompanied by a sneer or some low, annoyed growl. They'd only known each other for a few months but by now, definitely by now, Nikon knew she wouldn't accept any sort of compliment or reassurance until she figured this out.

She turned her head, her eyes locking with his. Unblinking she kept her eyes straight with his, hers on that borderline between annoyance and anger, and reached down to retrieve her PDA off her stomach. After a few _clicks_ she had the various wires connected she took out a small stylus and started tapping on different points.

A lot had changed in the last few days. He knew she'd change.

Their experience together on the planet had been something she had never been prepared for. A fleet officer? Yes. But a soldier? No. She wasn't a soldier and never had a reason to believe she'd ever be put in the position to take someone's life, not directly. There was always that 'you might have to kill' thought lingering in the back of the minds of every sailor, solider, and Marine in the Colonies but with the Colonies united their enemies were Cylons, robots… thing you could slag by the bucket load and after you were done blowing the Toasters to Tartarus go and get a quick frak for surviving the battle without worrying about the moral consequences.

The years following the Cylon War and the unification of the Colonies had been met with hope. Hope that Man would never kill Man again in something as destructive as war. The Cylons were the only external enemies of the Colonies. The Cylons were machines without souls, lower than animals in the eyes of the Gods, incomparable to living and breathing humans.

The only men and women who had raised their guns in anger against their fellow Colonials were old and retired or formed the extreme high ranks of the military or political leadership. The Fifth Colonial Conflict had seen four hundred million humans die at the hands of both humans and Cylons. It had been the last great struggle between planets which had leapt without break into the Cylon War, the robotic uprising beginning at the Battle of Corvus.

There were of course minor scuffles; pirates, small bands of separatists, but those were police actions which required a literal fraction of a fraction of the Colonial military.

No one knew an entire fraking galaxy of humans were out there. And an entire galaxy full of humans who wanted to kill for their psychopathic, god-impersonating masters.

"So…" Premie decided to talk 'shop' even if her knowledge was far beyond his, "I heard these ships require almost no maintenance…"

"I guess."

Premie mentally sighed.

"What about their inertial compensators…?" No reply. "The reactor's supposed to put out like a dozen times-"

She groaned her frustration with him and slapped the PDA down to her side, one of the data link wires popping out of its port. Her eyes narrowed at nothing as her face hardened into a scowl. "Is there something specific you need?" Amorak brought her hands above her head and pushed away from the bulkhead, scooted away and sat up, her back resting on the central pyramid-shaped console. "I have a lot of fraking work to do, Premie."

Nikon, still on the ground, quietly sighed. At least she was using the informal call sign. That was good he figured.

Captain Nikon pushed himself back up and tugged down at his dress grays. He was a little amused that Amorak hadn't noticed the uniform and asked why he was wearing it… it wasn't like they and the rest of the command staff had anywhere _important_ to be.

He looked around and saw Jessica's watch lying on the ground; he'd noticed she always took it off when she was working. Nikon admired it for a moment. It was one of the Tauron makes from the Kreis Armory, one of the old Spartoi production companies Vergis Corporation had subcontracted to during the Fifth Colonial Conflict. They built their shit tough and strong. You could take a hammer to it and it'd shrug the scratch off like battle armor and it'd go on ticking defiantly. It also cost about half a year's pay for a captain such as himself.

Checking his 'cheap' watch the military provided its pilots (which cost nearly five hundred qubits, somehow) he figured she had about thirty minutes left in order to get ready for the service in an hour. He was surprised though at how little grease and grime was on her working uniform. Vipers and Raptors were muddy swamps compared to this Goa'uld shuttle. Nikon had already seen its engine assembly. He could quite literally eat off of it, it was pristine.

Despite the clean, almost hospital-like feel to the ship, there was an unease which rattled through him whenever he walked into the _tel'tak_. There was just something off about the ship; not haunted or anything like that, just 'off'.

The ship was so sanity, so spacious and just so… so clean it didn't feel like a military ship. There were maybe a quarter the buttons you'd find in a Raptor and the _tel'tak_ was missed knobs and switches to flick on and off. The cockpit controls were just strange. He'd sat in the 'cockpit' for a little while the other day, trying to just get a feel with hand placement, foot placement, all that, and it just felt off.

"Yeah, I know you have a lot of work. True. And I know you want Doc Baltar here-"

"Helping me…" there was a slight hesitation, "helping me figure this stuff out."

He'd seen her on her way to the medical bay more than a few times. Doctor Baltar's internal injuries had been a bit more serious than their equipment had led them to believe. Either that or running kilometers through the forest, slamming down onto logs and rocks for cover, and getting caught up in a life-or-death battle might have exacerbated his condition.

Premie had been pretty impressed with both of them. He wasn't trained as a soldier but Colonel O'Neill had apparently complimented him and Jessica and Gaius, which Captain Upland had relayed back. Still, to have two people who never expected to be shot down on an alien world hold up like they did was impressive on its own.

He also didn't expect to lose one of his best friends on some survey mission to a fraking bastard sneaking up and shooting them like that.

From all the Triad games and drinking with the Doctor, Nikon knew the Doc would be scampering and pulling IVs and leads just to get here onto an alien ship and start pulling it apart to learn its secrets. Baltar and Amorak were a lot alike in that way and he'd seen them off in the officer's mess before the whole being shot down incident talking about different theories and spatial this and that and computer whatever.

"…yeah… but since we got back from the mission you've been pretty distant."

She gave him a look like he was stupid. "Distant?" She buried her chin down into her chest while keeping her eyes on him in some unbelieving stare. Her left eyebrow rose in some discarding look. "Really… captain?"

A quickly raised hand cut her off. "Well, yes…" he hesitated. Premie wasn't someone to go and have heart-to-hearts with anyone. If you had problems you acted like a man and barreled through them and fixed them. Touchy feely things were what shrinks did, not Fleet officers and definitely not pilots. "You never expected to kill anyone. Our enemies are Cylons, not humans." He gestured off to the side illusively. "Even with our training, the position you were put in…" he shook his head. He knew it was a cheap way to end his thought but needed a few moments. "A lot of people react differently when they have to kill in self-defense-"

"Huh… sure," she dismissed him quietly, looking down. She closed her eyes, chuckling. "My family builds weapons. We're weapon scientists, you know that?" She opened them and looked at him, waiting for a nod. "The Amoraks have always been weapon scientists and all of us knew what our weapons were used for, obviously and we're okay with that… my grandfather helped…" she waved her hand and brought her knees up to her chest. "It doesn't matter. I already submitted a short concept report to Commander Adama and the tactical division. They bounced ideas back on what they want me to look for. They want the impossible."

He scooted besides her. "No one's expecting miracles this far out with no support staff. We'll be back to the Colonies in a few weeks. This is big. The Fleet will hire whomever you need."

"Commander Adama wants miracles as a 'just in case'. Colonel Tigh doesn't want the Earthers working on this with me, he doesn't trust them. Frak, Premie, I can tell Carter is an expert on this, Upland figured her out quick but no one is giving me anything on this." She balled her hand and hit the console. "This fraking thing is classified tighter than Artemis's legs. But how much can I fraking figure out in just a few days?"

Carefully he raised and arm and put it around her shoulder, bringing her in closer. He hadn't known her a long time, but these last few months… he knew all these complaints was just her defense mechanisms kicking in, that armor swinging into position to deflect her emotions and feelings until they hammered through. She was good at deflecting questions but Premie wouldn't let her off that easily. He knew exactly how she felt. He'd felt the same.

The first night they'd been back he couldn't sleep. He listened to his fellow officers snoring and breathing while he just lied in his rack and stared at the bottom of the ugly and bland gray rack above his. He listened to the hum of the ship's engines and the footsteps outside his quarters. He'd tried everything to keep himself from going to sleep. At one point he'd walked for hours around the outer corridors of _Valkyrie _just thinking about what had happened, how incredible it had been, and what sort of destiny the Fates had laid out for him that of the forty-five billion souls in the Colonies _he_ was the one off three to make contact with aliens?

He squeezed her shoulder and smiled sympathetically. He could feel her anger and fear. "It's hard…" she looked at him, "killing someone, Jessica, but you'll get through it. We did our duty to the Colonies and to each other. Fruity also died doing his duty. He was my friend, one of the most fun guys to hang around with. But he did his duty and I know he wouldn't want this. Don't forget that, please. Burying yourself in work isn't the way to get passed having to kill, even in self-defense. You're a scientist-"

"A weapon scientist who builds things to make killing easier- human or Cylon but I get like this after I pull the trigger myself?" Jessica, staring ahead at the bulkhead, listened to the sounds of the hanger deck as the first watch began to slowly trickle in. She finally relaxed and let her head slope down until her temple rested on the crook of his neck, right above his shoulder. "I still have this."

She dug into her pocket and pulled out the coin with the dolphin he'd given her back on the planet. Placing it in his hand, she closed his fingers over it.

"It got a little scratched."

He grabbed her hand. "Keep it. I want you to have it." He gently placed it back in her palm.

* * *

It was early in the morning, 0730 and for the last hour _Valkyrie_ had already taken on the life of a miniature city as thousands of crew rushed and dodged in the corridors, elbowed their ways into the communal showers, and stood in morning chow lines for that stuff the military had the audacity to label as 'food.'

In the starboard flight pod a small gathering of men and women had assembled in their finest; dress grays for Fleet, dress blacks for Marines. A large hanger bay door which served a triple role of atmospheric hatch, blast door, and privacy door (for such functions) had been closed to segregate the ceremonial party from the rest of the hanger bay. At only a few centimeters shy of half a meter thick the blast door kept the sounds of the hanger bay from interrupting the ceremony.

On the port side of the compartment Commander Adama bowed his head, his left foot separating from his right at the previous position of attention. The others officers and enlisted personnel of the memorial service followed. A soft sound was made as they clasped their hands, the noise tempered by the linen, snow-white gloves.

Beside him Commander Allison Vasic from _Gorgon_, her XO, and Colonel Tigh did the same. Major Amorak, Doctor Baltar, looking pale and gaunt (and defying doctor's orders), and Captain Nikon comprised the rest of the front row. There were four more rows of seven behind them.

The Fleet wore their dress gray uniforms, decked in decoration and awards and individual officers and sailors wore multi-colored ribbons for everything from exemplary service to Cylon War combat tours and the Medal of Valor on their left breast, partially covered by their sashes. Officers wore assorted colors for their sashes- some with buckles on the right hip, some centered. Each wore a double shoulder cord, half silver and with a second color of either silver, gold, black, and white shoulder cords to denote various positions while enlisted personnel wore a blue sash with blue cord on the right shoulder with a similar color pattern. Their dress uniform pin over the right breast also lacked the two lower prongs of the officer's pin.

The Marines, seven forming the rear line of the ceremonial party and two standing guard at each hatch, wore their dress blacks; a black tunic on the gray pants the Fleet wore. Their sashes were gold for officers and silver for enlisted. The officer's sash was piped with a thin line of silver in the center running from shoulder to hip while the enlisted had a thin line of gold unique to the Colonial Marines which had been an old Virgon tradition prior to Unification.

In front of the assembled party and aligned with Commander Adama were two marble columns.

Behind the columns, half a dozen steps back were four sailors and two Marines.

The two sailors in the center, petty officers, wore black gloves and held two shimmering, glittering silver helmets close to their chest. Flanking them, one on each side, were two additional sailors holding a short sword, the _xiphos_ flat and across their chest, tip pointed in and up. At each end was a Marine, their fists closed tightly around a coin at the position of salute, their right fists over their left breast.

Incense burned in the center of the compartment at the base of a two small marble columns. Atop the columns were two busts, plain in design, made to represent any soldier.

Commander Adama snapped to attention and ordered the Honor Detail forward. The ones with the helmet stepped off together and placed the helmet on the bust, in the position one would be ready for war. The two sailors holding the swords marched smartly to the side, flanked in, and laid the swords flat on the column on the outer edges. Then the two Marines each came forward and placed the coin on the inner edge.

Together the six marched back to their previous positions, about faced, saluted, and then came to rest and bowed their heads.

Inside the compartment a banner from each of the Twelve Colonies hung from gold crested flag poles. In the center was the Seal of the Colonies.

The ship's priest, Brother Kline, dressed in ceremonial black robes with write script running the length covering his dress gray uniform, stepped up to a podium, to the left side when facing the columns with sword and helmet, and called to the assembled crew. They came to attention and then a knee, touching their index and middle finger to their forehead. He did the same yet remained standing.

"Dei Kobol una apita uthoukarana, ukthea mavatha gaman kerimuta, obe satarane mua osvathamanabanta, api obata yagnya karma."

The SGC personnel followed the lead of the Colonials, taking a knee and bowing their heads, but did not place their fingers to their foreheads. While they respected the religions of the dozens, hundreds of worlds they had visited neither SG1 nor SG8 was expected to fully participate.

They were honored for what the Colonials were doing. This was a memorial service for the two SG8 Marines killed. They had insisted the two be honored for their bravery especially with one being executed over the Raptor, which the Goa'uld believed to be of Tau'ri origin, and the second to have died after helping to save Nikon, Amorak, and Baltar.

Staff Sergeant Tomes was a Lutheran and Ramos knew his family had a burial plot in Maryland while Sergeant Gerhard had been a Mormon with something like four generations of family around Salt Lake City. The sergeant had been pretty good about visiting them whenever he could. Each man and woman in the SGC filled out various forms and papers detailing what they wanted done with their bodies (provided they weren't irradiated or toxic or vaporized or subjected to one of a million nasty things that could happen to an SGC soldier). Both men wished for their bodies to be returned to their family and Commander Adama and Brother Kline had immediately agreed to freeze their bodies in the morgue.

Daniel quietly translated for the rest of the team and SG8. "Help us Lords of Kobol, let us walk the path of righteousness, and lift our faces unto your goodness, we offer this prayer."

The Colonials replied with '_So Say We All'_ in their native tongue. Some of the SGC personnel replied with '_amen'_ while some made the sign of the cross.

The memorial detail was called back to attention and dismissed. Most of them quickly filed out of the hatches, eager to begin their daily duties.

O'Neill studied them for a moment. Most of them were pilots and the rest he wasn't sure, he hadn't figured out the badges and pins the Colonials wore yet.

They'd already held the service for the dead pilot, Fruity, but the SG teams hadn't been invited to participate.

"That was interesting," O'Neill quipped, turning to Daniel and the rest of the team. "Pretty nice of them, too…" he took a step back, closer to his team, who all made some indication of silent agreement. He looked over at Carter and Teal'c. "It's nice to see some appreciation."

As grateful as he was that the last few days had been relatively pleasant (if one could call excruciating boredom pleasant) the Colonel felt a little tingle that kept a single thought repeating over and over; '_they want something_.' There were plenty of people out in the galaxy who were nice to be nice but recent experiences had left him, self-admittedly a bit jaded and questioning the intentions of those around him, especially the Colonials.

They'd already tried half a dozen times to recruit Carter into helping with the _tel'tak_. He, Ramos, and Teal'c had been questioned for some time over Jaffa weaponry and even invited into Marine country, under heavy guard of course, to aide in analyzing the staff weapons, zats, and stun grenades the Colonials had picked up after their Raptors had chopped up the Jaffa.

He could already tell that beyond the technological wonder of energy weapons the Colonials didn't hold much stock in the standard equipment of the Jaffa. _Valkryie_ had maneuvered its powerful optics right on the center of the battle before the Raptors had swooped in and had roughly six minutes of combat footage of Jaffa firing on the SG and Colonial positions which the Colonial Marines had analyzed. None had been particularly impressed.

They'd have held back, formed a perimeter, and lobbed gas in rather than getting within throwing distance to toss in the Jaffa stun grenades.

One of their officers, Major Usher, had tried hitting a small target on their firing range with the staff weapon and missed three out of four times when shooting at an old helmet and mannequin. The fourth time had been a knick at best. Usher had been less than tactful in his analysis of the Jaffa staff weapon; Daniel didn't need to translate the Greek/Latin language for everyone not a linguist to understand what he was saying.

So far it was 'what can you tell us about this and that' with very little 'how can we help each other?' going on. O'Neill didn't like that and in fact, hated it. SG1 and SG8 were being treated like they owed the Colonials and that just wouldn't do for him. If they wanted something they needed to be ready to offer something back in turn.

Even with this memorial service he didn't let his guard down. The memories of Euronda and the stress and fractures it had caused in his team were still fresh. They'd had the God damned heavy water on the gate platform ready to send to a bunch of genocidal monsters! And O'Neill had blamed himself completely. Daniel had sniffed something was wrong but he'd shut him up because the Eurondan tech was shiny and powerful. He'd hated himself for what he'd done. That wasn't going to happen again.

If jaded cynicism was the way to keep the SGC from being taken advantage of then so be it. Until these people were ready to give a bit more than 'Cylons are bad' he wasn't inclined to let his people help beyond some basic lessons about Goa'uld tendencies and tactics.

"It's a lot more exciting… uh," Petty Officer Gage, the SG8 team medic sort of stumbled on his words, "than uh, a normal funeral or memorial service, uh, sir."

Major Ramos cocked his head and stared at the busts for a moment and the shimmering swords, helmets, and coins. His eyebrows rose in approval. It wasn't exactly what he would have done but it'd be something he'd remember. And it was definitely a worthy ceremony of two men he considered heroes. "You ever saw anything like that, Doctor Jackson?"

"I'm not aware of any Greek or Roman service like that." Daniel shrugged.

"It was unique," Teal'c answered. Colonel O'Neill and Major Ramos had their back to the center of the compartment as Commander Adama and Commander Vasic approached their group. There were Marines present, most likely armed discreetly, but pressed back against the far bulkhead. "Colonel O'Neill, Major Ramos." Teal'c nodded between the two to alert them to the presence of the Colonials.

The two turned as Commanders Adama and Vasic came up.

Adama stepped forward and expertly grasped O'Neill's hand in an Earth handshake, not the Colonial version of gripping the forearm. He pumped a bit too hard, but O'Neill smiled the discomfort away and turned to Daniel, flickering his eyes to get the linguist from and center.

"_Colonel O'Neill, Major Ramos, this is Commander Allison Vasic, CO of _Gorgon_ and second in command of the battlestar group," _Adama stepped to the side and then introduced O'Neill and Ramos to the commander.

Neither of them had met her before but did know a little about her. She'd been mentioned a few times by Amorak or Nikon when they'd come to visit the two teams in their temporary quarters. Apparently she was an old friend of _Valkyrie_'s commander.

Daniel stood at Jack's shoulder and began translating.

O'Neill was the first to shake her hand. "It's a pleasure, ma'am. And on behalf of SG1 and SG8 thank you for this service. It's uh… much appreciated… a bit rare."

He'd gotten a little more familiar with the Colonial ranking system which he considered pretty damn strange and convoluted. There was apparently a rank of ensign, which new officers were commissioned as for about eighteen months. Then it was junior lieutenant, senior lieutenant, captain, lieutenant colonel, colonel, commander, and then flag ranks with admiral or general, depending on the service.

There was some sort of complicated two-track system within the Officer Corps of the Colonials O'Neill had read up on during his many hours staring at the ceiling of the JO quarters he and the rest of SG1 had been assigned. Apparently those just serving for a short while generally hit captain then put in three to five more years before mustering out but were expected to put in at least a decade, four more years than the minimum required of ROTC cadets or Academy graduates in America. Those who went career were expected to throw in a minimum of thirty years before receiving a pension and life-long benefits and generally retired as colonels or higher.

By all accounts a rank of commander was technically equal to the rank of colonel or captain back on Earth, an O-6, but here, if O'Neill just counted the ranks and assigned pay grades to them, it was an O-8, or two star rank.

"They actually use the 'sir' honorific for both men and women in their military, Jack," Daniel said as he leaned forward. "I translated it as 'sir', by the way."

"Ah, thanks, Daniel."

"_It's an honor to meet the commanding officer of Earth's Stargate team,"_ Vasic said, "_and an honor to meet descendents from the Thirteenth Tribe. And inhabitants of Earth."_

The Colonel leaned back after a smile and bob of the head. "The DNA test again…" O'Neill muttered. Daniel's eyebrow raised up, slightly crooked, and his shoulder followed in a bit of an apathetic shrug. "Conserved sequence something." He made a twirling brushing motion with his hand to dismiss the science tongue-tying phraseology.

"Tests don't lie, sir," Carter said, getting a shrug back from him and a look from Daniel.

The possibility of the tests being fake hadn't been missed on the team.

Carter had explained the significance of the tests after Daniel had arrived back in their temporary quarters with the comp sheets and DNA genealogy tests. There were highly conserved tandem repeats of various lengths on dozens of different locations on numerous chromosomes. In effect the Colonials and some members of SG1 and SG8 shared these conserved sequences.

All of SG1 and SG8 also shared additional highly conserved sequences amongst themselves which were not present in the Colonial genome. In her explanation she'd given them alphanumeric designations, with E representing the Earth sequences and C for the Colonials. The Colonials had a different naming scheme for the chromosomes and different means of nucleotide representation; DNA wasn't labeled A-T and G-C but had been labeled as alpha, beta, gamma, and delta- mostly for the benefit of the Earthers since their real designations were more difficult to pronounce in English.

That meant that for the Colonials to have been from Earth they too would have had the 'E' repeats. They didn't. But O'Neill, Jackson, Gage, and Blue all had the 'C' and 'E' repeats.

"_Colonel, if I could talk with you and Majors Carter and Ramos,"_ Adama asked, turning to the side and extending his hand for those not named to depart, "_the rest of your men will be shown back to their quarters."_

Teal'c hesitated a moment, a raised eyebrow being his only movement.

"_Um, may I ask why?"_ Daniel asked.

"_We wish to speak with them,"_ Vasic replied, curt, but with a smile. "_And you are currently the only one capable of translating until later."_

Daniel's gave both commanders a look. "Until later?" He repeated in English. "_Until later?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Later this afternoon we'd also like to speak with Teal'c about Jaffa and Goa'uld tactics again,"_ Adama requested. It took a second for Daniel to translate, still confused over the 'until later' remark.

"It's alright Daniel, Teal'c...?"

The Jaffa bowed his head, raising it slowly. "I understand O'Neill. I will be waiting for your return in our _temporary_ quarters." The inflection on 'temporary' was a hint to O'Neill to finally resolve the issue that both had been concerned about; how long were they going to be here?

Alright, I guess we'll see you a little later." O'Neill bobbed his head to the side for the Marines of SG8 to follow the Colonial Marines. Teal'c and Daniel stayed a moment before falling in about a dozen steps behind the Marines, with two Colonial Marines behind them. Blowing out towards the now empty space his two friends had been, O'Neill raised his hands. "Shoot."

Commander Adama pointed to Major Amorak and Doctor Baltar. "_We're asking once again for your help in analyzing the equipment we seized."_

"We're still not quite sure on that, Commander," O'Neill replied, "because we've gotten a bit burned on helping in the past. No offense," he put his hands out and palms out and then gestured to himself and his team, "but we don't know you still." He waited a moment for Daniel to finish translating. "You seem like nice folk, but we know nothing about you." O'Neill pressed his index finger to his thumb to emphasize the 'nothing' point and swiped the hand from his chest out.

The response from the Colonials- before Daniel could translate- was a little bit of shock mixed with a healthy dose of shock.

Carter picked up on the Colonial's tensing. Amorak looked at Adama and back to O'Neill and two of the Marines on the flanks looked pissed. "Uh, sir."

Daniel faked a broad, 'reassuring' smile. "Jack… I think you just might have given them the equivalent of the middle finger," Daniel spoke through his teeth, faking that smile and wincing slightly.

The look on O'Neill's face was enough to ease the palpable tension. And a quick apology from Daniel, a nod from Adama, and a friendly chuckle from the group commander relaxed the Colonials. The Commander reached up and took off his glasses, carefully folding them and held them loosely in his left hand.

Commander Vasic, seeing her CO relax, took the misunderstanding for her morning entertainment, smiled, but managed to push down a laugh to go with Adama's. Behind her, Colonel Tigh was as straight-faced and grumpy as usual, standing with his hands tightly clasped behind his back and his dark, almost beady eyes boring right into O'Neill.

"_Let me cut to the point, Colonel,"_ Adama began again, "_Major Amorak and Doctor Baltar have hit a roadblock."_ He looked over both shoulders, his right with Amorak behind him, standing tall, and Baltar to the left, moving forward to protest. Commander Vasic took a step to the side to partially block Baltar. "_They need your help, Major Amorak can explain."_

"_Commander Adama,"_ Baltar somehow got around Vasic and was right behind the Old Man, who had to give him his attention. "_I already looked at the laptop we had from uh…" _he lowered his voice, "_that Major Carter had,"_ he flashed her a smile which didn't seem to feel right to Carter, but he didn't notice, "_and their computer technology is way behind- primitive even, my cell phone has more computing power… Commander Adama, hear me out. We can figure this out on our own. What about security risks and compromising our own technology? The more we involve-"_

Major Amorak was eying the Doctor now like she wanted to knock out teeth. She hadn't had many problems with him before- Gods he was an arrogant SOB- but she could keep pace with him and put him in his place. Unfortunately his work on CORA and other Colonial projects opened up a lot of doors and elevated him to where he had the ears of a lot of senior officers… Amorak's boss at Fleet R&D included.

The protocols for fraternization between military and civilian contractors were far less stringent than military-military. Baltar could wine and dine the admirals and generals in charge of appropriations and research and development with near impunity compared to what a lowly major could do- despite the famous last name.

And she was always trying to step outside her father's shadow and that of a family which was only a few steps below the celebrity of famous celebrity scientists such as Graystone and Vergis.

"_Doctor Baltar, I think Major Amorak can explain our situation."_ Adama cut him off with a glance and a gesture for Amorak to jump in and brief the Earthers.

Amorak split her attention between Carter, whom she would have preferred to deal with exclusively, and O'Neill, out of respect. _"I've been able to interface with the Goa'uld crystal technology after you helped with the initial examination of the ship to determine its safety."_ She paused to let Daniel translate, wondering how much of Baltar's insult he'd picked up on. "_But we still need your help. I can infer by how you work with the technology you have extensive experience. Passing on your knowledge would be appreciated, Major."_

Major Ramos stepped closer to Colonel O'Neill and whispered. "Sir, we might be able to get technology out of this. They have the _tel'tak_, they'll figure it out eventually… we haven't had the opportunity to study it. Anything they learn we learn and we might be able to bargain something from them."

"I was thinking the same, Simon, but…" O'Neill trailed off last second.

"Yes, sir, new protocols… I understand. But they've treated us well and sir," Ramos sort of grinned with a short and quick snort, "they're not Eurondans… we can tell that just by a casual look around."

O'Neill's eyes turned to ice and Ramos took a short step back, driving his own eyes towards the deck. Euronda was a touchy subject and Ramos wondered if he'd crossed the line with mentioning those evil Alien Space Nazis.

"What about these Cylons we keep hearing about?" O'Neill asked.

"_We went to war with the Cylons for twelve and a half years. They were a mistake. It was the worse war in our history. But that's why we're out here. We were looking for a stealth Cylon ship and found all of you."_ Adama said. "_With this threat of the Goa'uld that you have described the Admiralty and civilian administration will be alarmed. Two threats; Cylon and alien. The public will also be alarmed."_

"You're going to have to give us more than that." O'Neill replied. "Then just going to war with them. We don't know anything about how, why."

Carter's cheeks dimpled as she tried to present some calm, or middle ground between the two COs. "Sir, they _are_ going to figure it out eventually. This way I can see some of their technology." She contained her excitement, visibly at least, but O'Neill just raised an eyebrow and gave her the 'oh really' look he'd perfected when it came to her and technology. "And they're FTL system is pretty unique, sir. There are definite tactical advantages."

"Oh, I know Carter, I know." He nodded to reassure her that he did, indeed, understand. "Commander, we're still going to need more than that. Like more on who _you_ are."

O'Neill made face at that and looked off to the side and then to Daniel. He just wanted to make sure he hadn't be Ma'chello'ed into Daniel's body or anything, because for a second it sounded like something Daniel would say. '…more on who you are…' rummaged around in O'Neill's mind for a second before he just shook his head to disappear the thought away. Whatever.

"_Colonel O'Neill_," Major Amorak answered for Commander Adama, "_the Colonies are in a state of cold war with the Cylons, which could go hot at any moment. We need to protect ourselves and the tens of billions of Colonial citizens. And with the Goa'uld now… The Cylons, they've ignored our diplomatic attempts for thirty-four consecutive years… we have no idea what they're planning or what they're capabilities are. You must feel the same apprehension in regards to first discovering the Goa'uld."_

Adama looked over with a slow glance and even slower blink. She stopped talking.

O'Neill understood where the young scientist was coming from, he did- definitely the part about protection. Finding weapons had been a driving force for years, but that had almost cost the SGC everything. "We also need to know what your intentions are concerning us. We just can't help people develop weapons without knowing the whole story."

After Daniel translated that statement O'Neill almost felt a chill from the looks he was being bombarded with by the Colonials.

Commander Adama ignored his statement. "_Major Amorak is correct."_ Slowly he put his glasses back on. "_The Cylons have ignored diplomatic attempts for thirty-four years."_

"_Maybe we could try?"_ Daniel offered. "_We've been successful at diplomatic negotiations between warring parties before."_

"_Out of… the question!"_ Commander Vasic jumped in, quite loud, and sounding like someone had just requested a personal audience with Zeus Himself.

Adama shook his head slowly. "_Cylons don't permit humans to cross the Armistice Line. And no, you would never be permitted to 'try' anything with the Cylons. You have no idea what they did."_ The Old Man's eyes narrowed. "_Our last war they tried to genocide us. Seven billion were killed. They rebelled without warning and launched attacks on civilian population centers without warning. They attempted to gain control of Caprica's strategic nuclear stockpile for the sole purpose of nuking the entire planet._

_The Cylons would more than likely kill you or hold you hostage in an attempt to forcibly extract all your knowledge about the Stargate and alien threats in the galaxy. Unless you have significant space assets… the Cylons have no moral reservation about nuking a planet. The only reason why the war didn't devolve into a full scale nuclear attack was because the Cylons were able to capture so many of our civilians. But their industry and manufacturing was still planet-bound. There would have been mutual destruction."_

"Did they just say seven billion?" O'Neill was stunned; a throaty huff of disbelief escaped his lungs. "Damn."

Daniel tensed and looked to each of the officers. "_I'm sorry… I didn't realize…"_ He mentally kicked himself for bringing that on himself, but he still had questions. There were _always_ two sides to every war but he'd need to bring this up privately with Jack, not here. "_But you said they rebelled… you built them?"_

"_A mistake," _Amorak stated. Baltar sort of gave her a look- his views on AI were well-known. To him the only mistake wasn't enough control. AI itself was innocent; it was just the idiots who didn't throw in enough safeties. Graystone and Vergis. _"It was a mistake which led to two wars."_

"_The Fifth Colonial Conflict and the Cylon War,"_ Vasic explained, "_We built the Cylons nearly eighty years ago to fight our wars. The Colonies were divided into three camps- two competing economic and military alliances and a third neutral group of planets. One side had Cylons, the other side responded with a robot called a Spartoi."_ She didn't explain which side had which, all that mattered to her were the Colonies had been divided. "_All three sides built up massive armies over thirty years. There were enough robots, tens, maybe hundreds of millions… enough to attack twelve planets and land soldiers on almost all of them. I watched the nuclear bombardment the first night… at my cousin's house. They were blinded when a nuclear missile exploded in the night sky."_

"_The Major's right,"_ the Old Man said, "_and the Cylons were our biggest mistake. No one knows what happened. One day the Cylons and Spartoi are operating within their… parameters-"_ which was nice for saying they were operating within their orders to kill for their respective alliance"-_and at the Battle of Corvus they spontaneously began to engage the human-crewed ships. They slaughtered men, women, children, the elderly, the crippled, everyone they could. They killed five hundred million throughout the Colonies in their initial nuclear bombardment. Like Commander Vasic I also watched the bombardment the first night, from our capitol, Caprica City. They killed a hundred million in one night on Caprica alone. They did everything to defeat us; they used us as human shields in their military bases, experimented on us, poisoned our farmlands with chemicals- much still poisoned to this day."_ The Old Man stopped abruptly. Talking of Cylons atrocities he could already feel his blood boil and his blood pressure skyrocket, his heart race.

They were a mistake, a grievous mistake of arrogance in which the Colonies attempted to control something uncontrollable; life itself. It was short sighted… and the personal loss. The Fifth Colonial Conflict and the development of the Cylons had claimed his mother and he could never erase the mental imagery of seeing her killed in the crossfire of a hostage attempt on the Graystones a year before the FCC ended and the Cylon War began…

She'd been just a bystander, innocent, just a second generation Tauron returning home from work… she'd been an analyst with a corporate think tank and had gotten off of work early and was coming to pick him up from school. The horror of that afternoon was made worse but the way he'd witnessed her death.

Caprica had been a society of connectivity; the Mesh connected everyone and everything together in a web of computers, cell phones, laptops, comp sheets, everything. At school he saw the video uploaded to a website of a massacre outside Maglev Station Fifteen, six blocks from the school, which had been put on lockdown. He could hear the police sirens, the police VTOLs skimming through the skies, and he'd heard the gunshots.

Out in the courtyard at school there was even a police van with armed Cap City PD in black vests, helmets, and sub-machine guns for the safety of the students.

A classmate with a cell phone had received some message, some video link texted to him by some Mesh site he'd been subscribed to. He and his buddies, a young William Adama included, had all gathered to see what it was.

And he'd seen the Graystone limousine cut off in traffic. The first car in their motorcade tried to break through the blockade, only to be destroyed by a rocket. A dozen men had stormed out from cars and hidden locations as Graystone security engaged them in a ferocious gun battle which killed the attackers and innocents alike.

Gas and smoke grenades clouded and choked the streets. Hundreds from the maglev station panicked and ran, creating so much confusion and so much chaos in the streets no one knew what was happening.

Willie remembered watching some young girl, maybe in her mid-twenties, being pulled from the limousine, kicking, screaming. One of her body guards shot her abductor in the chest but then was shot by another. She tried to run but was grabbed.

Zoe Graystone had been the victim of a kidnapping attempt which was supposed to secure Daniel and Amanda Graystone. Somehow, somewhere the intelligence was wrong. It was just one of those last minute changes where the mole inside Graystone's security detail couldn't pass on. Everything had been in motion. The elder Graystones had been safe, back at Daniel's company headquarters.

But he saw his mother gunned down. On a cell phone he'd watched his mother murdered by the kidnappers. Some people said she was in the 'wrong place at the wrong time.' No. To the Old Man that implied the victim was to blame. She was coming home from work, picking him up from school. She was in the right place, the right time.

The news broke the story and the military blamed the attack on special operations soldiers dispatched from the _Diadalos Pact_ to kidnap Caprica's premier military weapon scientist.

Even now he was forced to control the rage by clenching a fist so hard his short fingernails dug into his skin and pain shot through his arm…

He heard Major Amorak speaking, which brought him back, the scene of his mother's murder washed away as he was back, standing on the hanger deck.

"_Where we attempted to imitate the Gods and were forced into a war which almost wiped us out."_

Baltar rolled his eyes at Amorak's statement of 'imitating' the Gods. "_It had nothing to do with the Gods, Jessica, but with poor programming skills on the part of their inventors." _He flicked his hands dismissively at the Earthers. "_And why does it matter even explaining this to them? The concepts of an MCP are beyond their science."_

"_For understanding, Doctor,"_ Adama answered immediately. "_This is also about trust, Colonel O'Neill."_

She'd gone on at some length at one point about an obscure religious book in the Sacred Scrolls discussing the Cycle of Time and how in each era those who were created attempt to create and mimic the Gods in their natural powers, only for their experiment to fail.

The scientist still didn't understand how someone like her could believe in the Lords of Kobol. At times she sounded like she'd fit right in in some rural Gemenese village in bumfrak fraktown to him.

"Daniel…" O'Neill, hands coming together and index finger pointing at the Colonials, asked, "Does that sound convincing enough?"

"Seven billion dead, sir… I can't imagine." Carter whispered. Ramos had uttered a prayer and crossed himself for that many dead, a number truly unimaginable. "We've never had to face anything like that. Sir, it's like if Apophis in that uh… other scenario succeeded." The 'other scenario' was code for 'alternate reality'. The Quantum Mirror and events surrounding it were still highly classified. "And sir, it's not like we have to give them weapons. And this _will_ help us."

For Carter it probably didn't matter concerning the weapons. The Colonials had a cache they'd taken from the dead Jaffa and would be tearing into them like the SGC was doing with Area 51, trying to find their secrets. And she did admit that the Colonies seemed to be starting with a higher knowledge base. From her point of view helping the Colonials would be helping Earth much more just from what she'd learn.

The capabilities to build ships of this size, artificial gravity, and the FTL system that they used would catapult the ability of Earth to defend itself ahead by decades. At least with the rate they were going; the Tok'ra were less than helpful. She'd wanted Tok'ra help with the X-301 (and a test flight was scheduled for roughly fifteen weeks from now) but knew they'd be unwilling to help. The Colonials wanted a lot, which meant they would give in return.

But they weren't dealing with a lone commander who could make decisions. Adama didn't have that much authority. He, like she, was a cog in the vast military complex of hierarchical command structures. And as Carter stood there, hoping for a deal, there was an underlying worry about their situation clawing itself from the recesses of her mind, up to her conscious thought.

Daniel swallowed, letting the details roll around his mind for a few seconds. "Jack, it _sounds_ convincing but it's still only one side. I'd need to check historical records for accuracy and consistency and I seriously doubt they'd give that to us. They've been censoring even the TV programs they let us watch." He rolled his eyes at the security. Not even the SGC was as, as anal as the Colonials were being. The SGC censored military and economic details… but few of the prisoners to the SGC even stayed long enough to get bored. "This is one point of view and uh… the military point of view tends to always be a bit skewed." He was going to rush out an elaboration but Ramos cut him off.

Ramos wasn't as used to Daniel's point of view like the rest of SG1 was. "Military point of view? I'd say seven billion dead is fairly convincing. Robots are robots, they're not people." The Marine looked at O'Neill for support. He knew Doctor Jackson wasn't soft- his transformation from nerd archeologist into something resembling a soldier was impressive- but he saw the world in shades of gray while Ramos saw the world in black, white, with some gray occasionally tossed into the mix. "Seven billion, Doctor. It sounds like something the Goa'uld would do. There's no moral equivocating over their actions, they come in and bomb without warning."

"I'm not equivocating, major. We still need to learn more… if these Cylons killed so many and the Colonials are genuine in what they're saying then yeah, I'd support your point of view." Daniel shifted his stance, slightly wider, and didn't back down from the Marine. "There's nothing wrong with asking questions. And it's not like we're going anywhere."

O'Neill put up a finger. Ramos saw him and motioned to Daniel the Colonel wanted something, stopping their budding argument. Both men saw the Colonials watching them, standing there silently, though Baltar looked bored.

Adama was about as easy to read as Teal'c. Not very.

"So," O'Neill started, addressing the Colonials, "Daniel does raise some good points. We need some time to think about this… but that sort of depends on the next question, Commander. And I did ask it, well, sort of state it earlier… you want our help and that's great, because there are a bunch of things we also need… help on building ships and defending Earth. But if we help with the cargo shuttle that'll take a lot of time… um… you haven't told us where we're going yet or if there's a Stargate where we're going… so uh, when do you plan to let us return to Earth?"

And that was the fear troubling Carter. As great as this could be they were needed on Earth. With Sokar readying for war Earth needed them, not the Colonies. Her loyalty and priorities were to the US and Earth, first. She swallowed and waited for Adama's answer.

* * *

"Well, I don't know what to think." Corporal Robert Davids continued to toss the Pyramid ball back and forth with Corporal William Hughes and Lance Corporal John Blue. He missed the last toss, which earned him a few insults directed at his manhood and sexuality. Specifically how a twenty-three year old he was now, somehow, impotent for missing the ball. The Pyramid ball rolled over to PO2 Lance Gage, their Navy corpsman, who wrapped some pretty big fingers around it, gave it a disinterested look, a squeeze, and tossed it back without much care. "A part of me wants to get the frak out of here but that'd be kind of like committing suicide going up against them." He jabbed a thumb lazily at the hatch, closed his eyes and with as much exaggeration as possible, sighed for as long as he could keep the air coming out of his lungs.

Davids opened his eyes and continued to stare up at that boring gray ceiling and sigh as the boredom became greater and greater, as it wrapped its tentacles of boredom around him and squeezed the fun out of him.

His eyes flicked over to a really thin TV mounted on the wall but all the Colonials let them see were boring ass crime serials that weren't even translated or some alien version of _ER_. They had some pretty visuals, like a gleaming Caprica City, their capital city, but there was a lot of edited footage.

One of the shows- if Davids had figured out the plot correctly- had two detectives and some lawyer traveling up to a space station to figure out who'd killed the lawyer's husband… and the lawyer was a dude, which was a little weird to him, but when their shuttle was about to dock on some space station the show cut out and rolled the credits.

The damn Colonials didn't want to show them anything more than they already had. Basically what he'd seen so far was both impressive and kind of boring. 'Cap' City as it was called was like a more modern NYC and spaced out a bit more and with a metric shit ton of statues. Remembering some of the visuals he couldn't believe some of the statues they had to their gods there.

They'd actually been able to see some game called 'Pyramid', a cross between rugby, football, and possibly soccer, which looked pretty kick-ass. But they'd only been able to see two games, which amounted to about five hours or entertainment over a five day period.

Lance Corporal John Blue, lazily lying on the only couch, was now mostly recovered from his concussion and the injuries he'd sustained on the botched mission. He caught the ball one-handed and pretended to throw it to Hughes. Instead he let it roll back off his finger tips like he was shooting a basket then gave it a few hand squeezes before tossing it up in the air to himself. "Yeah, I don't think the Major would appreciate that. This aint a Jaffa ship… I saw at least half a dozen security cameras coming in, or what I thought were cameras. And who knows what the fuck they have watching us in here. And those fucking sentries mean business. They actually use real guns." Finally he tossed it over to Hughes.

Blue had never been a fan of Jaffa weaponry. They'd been issued zats a few times but the things were awkward to fire and few of the Marines liked to deploy with them. They were also heavy for their size, weighing about as much as some of the ridiculous hand canons you'd expect John Matrix or Rambo to use. The two redeeming qualities they had were the stun setting (which Blue found debatable) and no recoil, which was nice. For some reason the SGC scientists and egg heads hadn't figured out a way to take them apart and reassemble them into a more ergonomically correct and practical pistol.

"Just don't act like a dick to them," Corporal Hughes wisely advised, "and they won't do anything. And when the fuckhave you ever been on a Jaffa ship? A _Ha'tak?_ Bullshit."

"I read SG1's reports… you read, right Will?" Blue shot back. "Anyway, I'm hoping their spooky captain calls me back in. I could definitely tap that."

Gage, sitting at the table in an uncomfortable and hard metal chair, looked over to his buddies and snickered. Boredom was creeping in. The novelty of being on _Valkyrie_ had worn off. The Colonials had interrogated all of them a few times, no more than a couple hours, but were far more interested in SG1; Teal'c, Carter, and Jackson specifically.

Like the rest of the Marines Gage didn't have anything to do. The comp sheets were for the most part, blank, so he'd just been doodling with a stylus. He'd done a morning workout routine; jumping jacks, pushups, crunches, leg lifts, and dips with the rest of his friends and Major Ramos… and they'd probably exercise a bit more later. Just to feel like they were doing _something_.

Blue was half lying, half sitting on one end of the wiry and uncomfortable couch while Hughes was on the other, both exaggerating their boredom. Davids was in a very small recliner, feet propped up on a metal coffee table. The Marines had been assigned JO quarters, six racks, but since there were only five of them, they had a little bit of extra room.

They had the small couch, a recliner, the table, and three desks all arranged throughout the room and pinned up against the bulkheads. There was a head with two toilets and two sinks, with communal showers down the corridor heading towards what everyone assumed was the port side.

There was also a little altar-looking thin in one of the corners with a copy of the Colonial's _Sacred Scrolls_. Gage had thumbed through it and found some neat pictures but whatever language it was written in looked no different than chicken scratch. It was totally incomprehensible and apparently even giving Doctor Jackson a bit of trouble. Whatever language it was it was ancient.

It was a little awkward sharing the space with their CO. Major Ramos wasn't a hard ass like some officers but he'd always kept a distance between himself and his men. The small-team nature of the SGC fostered a different sort of atmosphere and professional relationship between the officers and enlisted personnel. Ramos had had them over to his house a few times for BBQ but still kept a more professional relationship than some of the other teams.

Tomes and Gerhard had both servied with Ramos before being assigned to the SGC. Gage had been deployed in '93 with Ramos in _Operation Restore Hope_ to Somalia, before the shit hit the fan in Mogadishu. They hadn't crossed paths though.

"I don't think you have a chance, bud," Blue loudly proclaimed, cracking a grin, "Though you do get enough practice tapping your palm." He cupped his hand and moved it up and down in the air. Everyone not named 'John Blue' chuckled at the Marine's expense, who'd turned a light shade of red on being called out. "Yeah, you're not that discrete, pal."

"Whatever." Blue interlocked his fingers, stretched and cracked a few knuckles, and laid back on the couch, propping one of his sand-colored boots onto the coffee table. He flicked a little lint off his MARPAT combat uniform- which the Marine SG teams were field testing- then pulled down on the top. "I'm surrounding by a bunch of fucking apes." He leaned over and took a deck of Triad cards sitting on the table and started fiddling with them. Doctor Jackson had actually translated the rules into English. They'd played a few games but not wagering anything and complicated rules led to frustration. "There's a lot of BAMs on this ship though."

Davids stifled a laugh and then leaned over and hit his buddy on the knee. "That's all you think about. But yeah, I noticed a lot more women on this ship then you'd normally see. Fuck, I think five or six of the Colonials who came down in their birds were women. And Amorak was hot." He finished with a lewd gyration of the hips.

"God damn…" Blue sighed, "I can't believe I'm stuck with you four… now, Major Carter, I could definitely uh, 'bunk' with her for a few days…" he saw a few concerned head shakes from his buddies. "What?" He sat up and looked over at Davids. "What man? You don't think-"

"Oh, no, she is, very." Davids confirmed. But he tensed, not wanting to say more. "But um… Blue Balls," he cough-whispered.

There were only a few topics 'off limits'. It was an unofficial list, but she was number one on the list of 'things you never talk about at the SGC'.

While the team had been together for months now, Blue was one of those guys who didn't seem to take the hint unless it bashed him in the face. And even then he still might not figure it out before shoving his foot so far down his mouth it could come out his ass.

"Nah, you have to be careful with that, Blue." Gage shifted his seat over and stacked the comp sheets. "In '96 I was on _Tarawa_ and we were out doing _Southern Watch_. A friend of mine was saying how he'd like to tap some new medical officer while we were down in the well deck. Turns out one of her friends from med school heard him and sent his ass up to mast for misconduct. Anyway, what happens if you end up banging some chick who's like your super long lost cousin or something?"

"That's just… nasty man." Blue made a face at the thought of it. "I doubt Amorak or Upland are long lost cousins." He bared his teeth in a defiant, wide grin back at the Navy puke.

He remembered it being explained that DNA somehow linked him and Gage as having descendents from some planet, Kolob, Kobol, something like that. The Marine thought it was kind of cool to have ancestors from another planet (even if they were so distant it didn't matter)… not that it was really all that important to him as it was to someone like Doctor Jackson or the stars and suits back home.

"Sounds like a fucking dbag," Hughes said in defense of Blue. He got a confused look from Davids and Gage. "That med officer… sending your buddy up to mast just for joking around."

Davids nodded, tapping his index finger on his chest as a distraction to the not-very stimulating conversation, jumped in. "I've seen worse. Mast, transfers to shit hole duty stations. Yeah, ya gotta watch it."

Gage shrugged. "Point is that someone can overhear you and even talking about stuff like that, even if you don't think anyone else is listening. Like with Major Carter, that's a fucking bad idea man… plus, I mean, come on…" he snorted, his eyebrows rising, and motioned for Blue to take the hint. "Come on, how thick can ya get?" Blue scowled. "Colonel O'Neill would break your neck if he ever heard something like that and that'd be a lot better than a few things I can see him doing."

Blue's eyes went a little wide for a second as he thought it over and then slowly nodded as the mental image of what O'Neill would do became a lot more clear. A little shiver was his body's unconsious way of solidifying the warning. "Uh, yeah… _that's_ a good point." Hughes was nodding at him and Davids had one of those shit-eating grins. "But what about-"

The conversations ceased as Major Ramos entered the space, two Marines standing watch from the hatch as it closed, its magnetic locks clicking to secure them inside. The Marines all stood as their CO entered, who turned back around to watch the hatch close. Davids and Hughes saw Commander Adama and the woman, Commander Vasic, from the memorial service in the corridor, with O'Neill and Carter behind them.

Ramos waited until the hatch locked and sealed before turning on his heels and waving his men to sit back down. He walked over, in front of the TV as he rolled up his sleeves until they were tight around the biceps.

"Sir?" Gage asked for the men. Even though he was Navy he was senior NCO and a lot of the responsibilities Staff Sergeant Tomes had now fell on him. He'd also been assigned to Marine units for the majority of his career, so he could read even stone-faced officers pretty well by now. "News from the Colonials?"

The Major curtly nodded, a small line of his teeth showing as his lips separated. His men knew that slight scowl was bad news. Something had been said to piss him the fuck off. But as he never lost his temper that was about as visibly angry as he'd get.

"I've discussed this with Colonel O'Neill a few times over the last five days… the only few times we were able to talk. The Colonials want us to basically tell them everything about the Goa'uld and help them with that _tel'tak_ they got. The Colonel and I agree that we can't really do that right now." He crossed his arms in front of his chest, his eyes trying to bored holes through the far bulkhead. "You all read up on the Eurondan incident?"

A plethora of 'yes, sir' responses followed quickly.

"Sir, is there any plan to get out of here?" Blue asked. He'd been trying to ask about that for the last two days but couldn't find the right moment. The lance corporal figured now would be as good, or as bad, as any.

The major shook his head slowly. "No. Security on this ship is like you'd see at the SGC. These people are professionals. They're soldiers and work as a team. They've got cameras trained on that corridor and I could tell they had more of their Marines stationed where we couldn't see 'em."

"When we came in we came in through two pressure hatches as those Raptors descended," Gage pointed out. "My guess is they're controlled at a central location or maybe locally. If we could get to one of them-"

"Doesn't matter," Ramos answered, looking Gage and then the Marines in the eyes, "we decided no breakout attempt, nothing like that. We don't even want anyone talking about it. Commander Adama also informed us of what he plans to do." Ramos paused, sucked in a breath, and watched his chest expand in his peripheral vision. Wide eyes and anxious stares from his team greeted him as he put up his hands, calloused palms out, as a pre-emptive call for calm. "We're jumping around in an evasive pattern but doing something called tactical evasion jumping… which are more frequent than what they normally do but at different ranges… something about stress to their engines, whatever," he shrugged. "We're three weeks out."

PO Gage silently winced. He could connect the dots and figure out the subtext but had to ask. "Three weeks from where, sir…?"

"We're gonna be here a long time. Get comfortable, Marines. They claim the threat of a new enemy to the Colonies is too great to simply ignore. For that reason they can't let us go right now… and they can't jump to a planet with a Stargate because they said there are no planets between here and their world which has any conditions conducive to life. They have some enemy, some nasty SOBs sitting on their border who killed seven billion of them about forty years ago. Those Cylon things the spook showed us during our interrogations. Basically they're in a cold war that makes our Cold War look like some puissant banana republic conflict. It isn't something I expected, Marines, but for now we have to sit tight. Commander Adama's taking us back to the Colonies."

* * *

_**Herikropolis**_**, Ha'tak Mothership**

**Deep Space/Tanshaw Traverse**

A Goa'uld, face forced into perpetual scowl and flanked by two of Lord Sokar's most loyal Necropolis Guard donned in crimson-black armor reinforced the authority of the so-called living god to his subordinates sitting across from him. Eight Goa'uld of various ranks and station within the Domain of Sokar sat across from or beside him at a lavish conference table decorated in the late Second Dynasty style of animal carving from a hundred Goa'uld conquered worlds. The carving were inlaid with gold and at the center of the table precious stones and crystals created a large and imposing Mark of Sokar.

On the faces of the Goa'uld competing shadows danced as the low glow of torches and the dim artificial light kept everything within the chamber, with the exception of the table and those around it, in a dreary darkness.

Behind the Goa'uld a black symbol, the Mark of Sokar hung from nearly invisible wires from the overhead. It was illuminated in his crimson color from unseen lights.

Rhadmet of Delmak, Servant of Sokar was the disgraced _Hasykos_- garrison commander- in the eyes of his subordinates. But no one dared challenge him for their master and lord had so proclaimed the responsibility of rectifying this defeat would rest on his shoulders… and by extension, their own.

As a Goa'uld he was nearly incapable of embarrassment. Failure was always the fault of another. Failures were due to the incompetency of the Jaffa, incorrect intelligence, trickery… and this Goa'uld was quite good at playing the Great Game of shifting blame and responsibility.

He leaned forward towards the other Goa'uld at the conference table, the scowl growing more pronounced as his upper lip flickered in anger. There was a growing fire and rage within. He was close to barring his teeth at those across from him like a wild, enraged beast.

"And what do you expect our Supreme Lord Sokar to do to us if we report failure? Because you were late, ship master," he glared at a beautiful woman with a tenacious and glowering look, "I was without reinforcement and the vessels that attacked were allowed time to flee."

Rhadmet leaned back, the aegis on his chest glittering gold and ruby red as it caught the dim lights of the torches. In the center was the Mark of Sokar and flanked by three small red rubies, proclaiming his high rank. His fist pounded the table, the metal finger coverings of his _kara kesh_ rattling.

The Goa'uld arrayed around him looked at him, indifferent and not-so-easily rattled. The Necropolis Guard on the far bulkhead stood straight and still, their eyes locked ahead but still scanning the room.

"We continue to pursue the offending vessels!" He proclaimed as the woman leaned back to cross her arms.

_Hasykos_ Rhadmet had already been warned what his fate would be if he failed and his eyes drifted to his lower left, to the table, where a wooden box with golden clasp remained tightly locked. It contained a master _ser'nat_, a blue-black orb that allowed him instant communications with Lord Sokar anywhere in the galaxy.

After torturing a Tau'ri and hearing from his soldiers of a Jaffa accompanying the humans, he knew the interlopers to be from SG1 which was the most famed and hated of any Goa'uld enemy in decades.

'_Tau'ri'_ had become a curse word among the ranking Goa'uld. To hear they approached, to know SG1 was near could send gale-force shivers through even the mightiest of the System Lords.

They defied all logic, all reason. They were so primitive yet had achieved more than what entire planets and alliances stretching throughout the galaxy could do!

With trepidation and a fear he could not admit to possessing Rhadmet had reported in to his lord and had expected Lord Sokar to order the Necropolis Guard to arrest him and return him to Delmak for imminent torture and execution. But Lord Sokar had spared him, curiously… and Rhadmet believed it to be the forthcoming war with the System Lords.

Already the ships of Sokar were engaged in skirmishes with Heru'ur's forces. It would only be a matter of time before the major System Lords declared war. Pragmatically, Sokar would need all his Goa'uld servants.

Rhadmet had seriously contemplated fleeing through the _Chappa'ai_ with all his knowledge of Sokar's weapon develop programs and swearing allegiance to Lord Ba'al or Lord Cronus. It would have meant being a traitor to one lord and never gaining the trust of another and he had too little personal power or standing to instill enough fear in the Jaffa to carve out his own little empire.

The Necropolis Guard was loyal to Sokar, answered to Sokar, and obeyed Sokar's under lords only if it did not contradict their god. They would have shot him without orders had he entered any coordinates into the _Chappa'ai_ that were not Delmak's.

They may have even shot him if he even approached the ring!

And he had no ships! No, he corrected privately, he could steal an _Al'kesh _or _tel'tak _but that would have just delayed death. It would have delayed a suicide at the hands of his master. And that death would have been long, painful, and put the torture and crucifixion of Apophis to shame in both cruelty and longevity.

Sokar would make him burn, literally, and revive him again and again. The tortures his master had engineered and pioneered over the centuries were legendary, brutal… frightening.

He would have been planet-bound. That would be perfect hunting ground for an _Ashrak_ assassin or one of the vile and primitive human mercenary bands Sokar had been using for his covert dirty work.

Instead of fleeing Rhadmet had stayed his fear and reported in and received one simple instruction; '_You will rectify the situation and recover the stolen research._' The ordered sounded so _easy_ in its simplicity. It left everything up to Rhadmet. He would have the authority of his master to do whatever he chose to do. He had all the local resources of the planet at his command.

And that was the problem.

Did his lord want the offending ships destroyed? Rhadmet, a Goa'uld almost a thousand years old knew of only one punishment which would 'rectify' the situation; death. Anyone who opposed the Goa'uld System Lords met that fate.

But did he want SG1 captured for the embarrassment of Netu? Kill them now and deprive his Lord Sokar of the pleasure of torturing them?

And he hadn't said a word about the number of ships he was pursuing. He assumed his lord assumed he, Rhadmet, had enough to destroy them… and if he asked for more… no. Without physical movement he mentally shook his head, discreetly swallowing. If he asked for more now…

Rhadmet pushed away such thoughts. They would only distract him from his task and if they manifested as physical distress, would lessen his standing amongst his inferiors gathered here at the table. Narrowing his eyes at a torch on the wall he turned as he saw a glimmer of jewels in the corner of his eyes.

A beautiful woman, her skin glistening a soft brown and with an intoxicating smell from scented oils and with a physical appearance of no more than thirty, leaned forward. "We are but two ships, _Hasykos_, to their five. Even with _Al'kesh _and glider support it may not be wise to pursue them with the intent to destroy. We should perform reconnaissance and report back to Lord Sokar. If he so deems he will send reinforcements. We can then attack with overwhelming force." Her left hand clenched into a fist and her right palm calmly covered it as she hid her disappointment with the tactics of the _Hasykos_.

She was the Goa'uld Sacmis of Delmak, Servant of Sokar, _Salatis_- Ship Master- of the _Herikropolis_ and she had served her Lord Sokar for the past one hundred and thirty-eight years as lieutenant in his army, a glider pilot, and a _Ha'tak_ commander. Unfortunately her high rank was subordinate to the local demands of the _Hasykos_. It was he who had demanded she give over her two _Ha'tak_ motherships for his pursuit of these strangers.

He had blamed her for arriving 'late' and thus had sealed their fates together- in his view. She believed Lord Sokar would be more forgiving of her, for she had been forced to drop out of hyperspace due to an overload in the computer control crystals. But before she could use her long range communications orb to report, Rhadmet had used his. His was more powerful, capable of overriding hers and directing her communications to his orb.

Rhadmet's 'master' orb, a _ser'nat_, was a blue-black orb with two small divots at the poles where he could place two _ser'kin _enhancement crystals which served the dual prupose of jamming and re-routing of communications to his _ser'nat. _It was superior to her own orb, a black _ser'set_ which possessed only one divot for a _ser'kin_.

The _Hasykos_ had used the '_I am your master, obey me_,' reasoning that Sacmis was all too familiar with. He had not even pretended to give her a reason, a true reason for his hijacking of her command and usurping of her position in front of her Jaffa. While his language had been threatening, his tone icy and laced with subtle hints, Sacmis had heard the slightest of trembles in that deep, synthetic voice her kind spoke in. Looking at Rhadmet at this very instant Sacmis had to divert her eyes down to her stilled hands to keep herself from smiling her contentment and excitement over the realization that the _Hasykos_ was _scared_!

She also knew Rhadmet had played his hand reasonably well. He saw her as competition. He was jealous of her skills as a commander. In her first battle so many years ago she had led a mere squadron of gliders and three _Al'kesh_ against a _Ha'tak_ commanded by a Goa'uld in the service of Cronus. She had defeated it and forced its retreat, saving one of Sokar's naquadah mines. A mere six weeks ago she had defeated half a dozen of Heru'ur's _Ha'taks_ while outnumbered two to one.

He feared her for her skills. And he envied Sacmis's choice of host.

Her host body had the appearance of a young yet mature woman with a well toned yet feminine physique. Her symbiote mirrored the youth of her host in its age; barely two hundred years.

Being so young her victories were seen as threats to the older Goa'uld in her master's service. While the loyalty of her fellow under lords was to Sokar their drive and ambition could serve as easy rationalizations for the murder or assassinations of their rivals.

Sacmis was dressed in the traditional Goa'uld style passed on by Ra which was both provocative and served as a status symbol to display the beauty of the host. Her stomach was fully exposed as the white tunic she wore was open in the center and cut with a long V to accentuate the full breasts. It was held up by two thin black straps over his shoulder.

She wore a gold necklace with an amulet bearing the Mark of Sokar created from a single cut ruby with three emerald stones on the sides to denote her status as a ship master. The necklace rested at the end of the V-cut, between her breasts.

The tunic itself was belted with a thick braided metal cord and the ended as a skirt at the mid thighs. She wore a pair of fine sandals, open toed, with leather straps around the ankles. The shins were covered, by armored greaves which began at the ankle and rose to right below the knee. They covered the front and sides of the calves and were trimmed with gold and three stripes ran down the center from top to bottom- three emerald. They were secured with four buckled, black leather straps.

Her arms were bare with the exception of two gold, blue, and silver colored arm bands on the biceps, a _kara kesh_ on the right hand, and half a dozen elaborately designed emerald bracelets on the left wrist with one, studded with small red and blue sapphires in a single line at the center being the most prominent. She also had a thick ring on both thumbs.

Her eyes were outlined in a deep black shadow from liner, her eyebrows thick and long, and her irises were golden rather than the brown the host had been birthed with. Her eyelids were painted in Sokar's crimson and her full lips were a ravishing red.

As she waited for her current master to respond she brushed back a strand of glossy black hair which had come loose. Her finger stopped as it touched the cool metal of her gold head band, the front with a golden, stylized falcon above her forehead and studded with sapphires, and she half-smiled at the _Hasykos_.

"So you want to report back that we have failed him, then ship master?" The _Hasykos_ snarled.

Sacmis's eyes flashed a cool white-gold. Rhadmet leaned forward, not backing down from the minor challenge.

If she had stood, addressed him by title, and flashed her eyes in anger the challenge would have been much more serious.

Each Goa'uld present looked out for themselves and their own above all else with the exception of Lord Sokar. Their service to him kept each of them from killing the other and usurping command. But there were times when insults were traded and challenges issued which forced a Goa'uld to kill another in their master's service… which could bring their master's wrath upon them.

Two subordinates from the same System Lord challenging the other was a dangerous proposition. Many times such challenges, the _sek'me'tet_, ended with the deaths of both initiator and defender.

It was a tenuous relationship between Goa'uld, each yearning for power yet forced to work as master and servant, superior and underling, to prevent their own extinction at the hands of powerful enemies such as the Asgard or Furlings. In their past infighting and backstabbing had led to disaster and had contributed to the downfall of the great First Dynasty which was on a path to rule the galaxy. The Reforms of Ra had put an end to the constant power struggles within domains, to a degree, but his death had reignited the internal feuding.

Under Ra no one System Lord was permitted to gain too much power. But with his death the remaining members of the High Council had divided his territory and ships. Each believed the other was attempting to take more than the 'fair share.' Some, such as Svarog, Olokun, and Kali wished for equal distribution of forces. Some such as Cronus and Apophis wished for forces distributed based on the size of their territory which would have benefited them.

Without the Supreme System Lord they began to steadily fall into full scale wars rather than the more limited skirmishes of the past where a few planets might change hands or a few mere millions of Jaffa be slaughtered.

It was all because of the Tau'ri…

Sacmis looked over to her second, commander of the other _Ha'tak_, _Selatis_ Gilkhan of Delmak, and Servant of Sokar for his support for her plan in dealing with the Tau'ri. He sat back, staring straight ahead, but a small flicker on his right hand, a slight lift of the palm off the table, confirmed his limited support for his commander.

She was undeterred by his lack of more spirited support and Sacmis turned back to the _Hasykos. _"We know nothing of their capabilities. With respect, _Hasykos_, if we attack then we could face destruction. Their ships out mass ours and their interceptor craft are much more numerous and engaged at range with missiles. Their interceptors had little trouble destroying our gliders on the planet. Glider Commander Nizsim will confirm." Sacmis turned her attention to the Goa'uld Nizsim, commander of the planet's glider contingent who had been reassigned, temporarily, to reinforce the gliders and _Al'Kesh_ on the two mother ships. "Glider Commander…" she prompted.

Across the table to the right of Rhadmet sat Nizsim, a veteran of fifty-eight years in Sokar's service and before that, centuries in the service of other Goa'uld. He had been a very minor independent lord before one of Cronus's expansions in the Fifth Age of the Third Dynasty hundreds of years ago had killed his Jaffa and destroyed his hold over a single desert and barren world. Lord Sokar had enticed him with promises of riches and command after he had distinguished himself under System Lord as an able commander and skilled pilot.

He was not like many of the other Goa'uld present. Nizsim was quiet and like the other half dozen Goa'uld preferred to let Sacmis and Rhadmet argue amongst themselves… if he and the others said nothing they would have no blame if the operation was a failure. But now he was directly challenged and must throw his support behind either the _Hasykos_ or the _Salatis_.

The Glider Commander had come straight from the glider bay and was not as extravagantly dressed as the other Goa'uld. He wore a pressure suit of a black leather-like substance many of the Jaffa pilots wore. The exception was that he wore the armored breastplate of one of Sokar's trusted lieutenants. It was crimson like the Necropolis Guard with two bands of gold running vertical on the left shoulder and Sokar's mark on the right breast in a deep black. His armor also possessed the metal folding technology present in Guard masks. At the press of a button the small bundles of armor at the back of the neck, the shoulders, and his flanks would expand to cover his head, upper arms, and upper thighs.

His pressure suit could keep him alive for days in the airless vacuum and the armor could protect him against most of the firearms used by primitives such as the Tau'ri.

Instead of a _kara kesh_ ribbon device he wore two gauntlets of thin black metal and thin black gloves. The gauntlets used the same metal folding technology and upon activation could cover the backs on his hands and fingers in flexible dull black armor.

The left gauntlet also featured a small rectangular device placed horizontally on the wrist, a _kara ur_, a small device similar to the _kara kesh_ which allowed him a shields capable of repelling both kinetic shot and energy blasts as well as a offensive weapon which fired low-powered _zat'nik'tel_ blasts.

Nizsim turned to face the _Hasykos_ while his eyes lingered on the ship master before focusing on Rhadmet.

"I would disagree with the ship master, _Hasykos_. I have reviewed the scans of their ships and they lack energy shielding. Their weaponry appears to be primitive… nothing but kinetic shot and missiles. While they possess large space craft their weapons are no more advanced than the Tau'ri." Nizsim paused, looked back at Sacmis, and inwardly smiled as he saw the hatred she had for him and Rhadmet. This was good, very good, and he would use it to his advantage. He would press every available button to make two competitors go from despising each other to outright hatred. "I believe with proper glider and _Al'Kesh_ support we can crush them. The ship master's fears are jus that; fears." He turned back and glared at Sacmis.

Nizsim's fist closed on the table as Sacmis's fingers clinked together from the _kara kesh_ as she drummed them once angrily.

"And how do you plan to find them?" Sacmis sneered at both Rhadmet and Nizsim. Her jaw tensed as she looked at both men- idiots- and their poorly thought-out 'plan.' She wondered if both were deliberately trying to set her up for failure.

Nizsim would not have the responsibility of failure. And if this attack failed Rhadmet would surely find a means of escape while Sacmis would be forced to remain on the _pel'tak_.

"That is very simple." Rhadmet tapped a small orb on his _kara kesh_ and held out his hand, palm up. The stone in the palm glowed red and then shot out a holographic projection half a meter above the table. "Before you arrived, ship master, our sensor net around the planet detected a spatial distortion which rippled through sub space when these ships appeared and disappeared. I have already dispatched _Al'kesh_ and _tel'tak_ scouts to scan space for any similar distortions. However, they dissipate rapidly. That is why we are moving quickly and must continue to move as quickly as we can. Without my actions being questioned." He glared at her, the muscles flickered so slightly to almost be missed.

They would have to drop out of hyperspace soon in order to receive the information those scouts had obtained and rendezvous with them.

The commander of the second _Ha'tak_ _Atat, _Gilkan, dressed in a simple black tunic, golden aegis, and a black cloak fastened with a simple leather strap looked briefly at his fellow commander, to the glider commander, and at the other Goa'uld. "I am in partial agreement with the _Hasykos_ and _Salatis_ and if their weapons are as inferior as the glider commander implies then the balance tips in favor of striking them. We must move cautiously but we must recover our stolen technology before the Tau'ri use it against us. It is clear they have found new allies. I must ask commander Nizsim for a more detailed assessment of their weaponry."

_Salatis_ Sacmis felt her disappointment for her fellow ship master. Gilkan was a wise commander but too subservient to his overlords and too trusting in the superiority of Goa'uld technology. Sacmis knew the limitations of their own capabilities. The Goa'uld Dynasty had ruled for nearly twenty-five thousand years and had destroyed great civilizations; the Lucians, the Gadameer, the Dendred, and many others yet a primitive nuclear device had destroyed Ra, the mightiest of the System Lords. A Tau'ri had killed Seth, rumored to have killed the banished and arguably insane Mars, murdered Hathor and set in motion the defeat of Apophis and had foiled the plans of half a dozen System Lords over the last three years time and again.

The Tau'ri and Tok'ra had destroyer her master's prison moon and even today, at this very moment, debris rained down on Delmak, destroying vital infrastructure for the assault on the System Lords.

They had stood defiant to the System Lords with no ships of their own and no army worth mention. They used small elite groups of infantry, 'special forces' they were called, and with a mere handful, a piddling number of men and women had inflicted more losses on the System Lords than any outside enemy in centuries.

Others had opposed the Goa'uld and lived but now lived under the yoke of the Dynasty. Advanced societies throughout the galaxy existed under the watchful gaze of the Goa'uld System Lords, content to let them exist so long as they did not expand into Goa'uld territory. A war with the most powerful of these independent and powerful star nations would lead to that nation's destruction but also the destruction of the System Lord who attempted to conquer them. With a fleet distracted another System Lord would pounce on their weakened brethren.

Survival as a Goa'uld System Lord was difficult when so many other System Lords, playing the Galactic Game of politics and conquest, waited patiently for one of their kin to trip and stutter.

The Tau'ri were already a potent and dangerous foe with their 'Stargates' and allied with the Tok'ra and handfuls of rebellious Jaffa had made themselves into a threat far larger than such a primitive would should ever be. If they could find allies with starships they would be a more potent foe. Sacmis knew they must be careful, but the _Hasykos_ was determined to right a failure which never should have happened had he utilized proper security… but Sacmis did not have the authority to question her current master in such a manner.

"Of course," Nizsim said. "The satellites in orbit were meant to be a warning system. My command glider possesses sophisticated scanners to coordinate assaults. I saw what their vessels were capable of. They used missiles to keep us away. In battle we can get close, under such fields, and we can jam their missile guidance systems like we've done to dozens of primitive worlds." He rapped his gauntlet with his other hand's knuckles and chuckled. "The vessel we shot down was designed as a stealth craft. We've seen these common design motifs on other worlds. Our scanners can detect them." He paused. "They are primitive. Two _Ha'tak_ mother ships with the support of two glider wings and _two Al'kesh_ wings will be sufficient to attack and end them."

"How do we know they do not possess weapons which they keep hidden?" Sacmis demanded. She looked to the quiet Goa'uld for support. One, an overseer of their technology, nodded his agreement. But the _Hasykos_ had control over the others and without the full support of Gilkan or Nizsim her plea was useless. "Field dampening technology, hidden and shielded compartments-"

"My scans indicated power outputs below that of a _Ha'tak_ mother ship. There was insufficient energy for shields or dampening. They are primitive, _Salatis_ Sacmis," Nizsim finished. "I am confident we will destroy them. I have fought more powerful enemies with fewer ships and emerged victorious. I have a plan to defeat them." His boast was greeted with a silent snarl from the beautiful host opposite him and a glitter of hatred in her eyes as the torch light reflected. Nizsim could tell she was angry. He looked over at his master. "If the _Hasykos_ permits."

"You all realize," Sacmis proclaimed loudly, "that we are travelling deeper into the Traverse? No Goa'uld has traveled this far passed its borders in many years."

She saw a flicker of doubt on the two Necropolis Guards behind Rhadmet. It was forbidden to travel this far into the Traverse, by Ra's decree. Goa'uld paid little attention to warnings- they challenged the Asgard time and again!- but traveling into the Traverse was something many Goa'uld did _not_ do.

A fellow Goa'uld to her right, at the far end of the table shifted uncomfortably and a second to that one's right cupped his chin and looked towards the deck and back up at the _Hasykos_, nervous and worried. She saw a young Goa'uld barely a century old, one of the engineers or scientists Rhadmet had brought tense and his eyes widen by the smallest perceivable width.

Many millennia in the past a great fleet of Goa'uld vessels had traveled into the Traverse to seek riches, hosts, and natural resources. It had never returned. A second fleet of even greater strength had been sent many years later. Only one battered and broken scout ship carrying Lord Apep had returned. Scout ships had been dispatched. None had returned. An expedition of advanced stealth warships under Lord Nut had been dispatched but her fleet was destroyed with her.

It was rumored the great evil, the _tarn'se'ket_, 'Evil Without a Name' was returning- but that rumor had manifested repeatedly, dozens of times over the years. More recently small outposts along the Traverse had disappeared thirty years ago, the towns and bases destroyed, and no man, woman, Jaffa, or Goa'uld had been found.

It had been a perfect place for a secret base by a master who feared no one. His power was great and he was willing to take risks. A planet on the edge of the Traverse, mere light years within its forbidden borders was a gamble he could take.

A traitor, not some _tarn'se'ket_, had ruined the base.

"What do we have to fear?" The glider commander asked in a voice much deeper and quieter than it normally would have been for a Goa'uld. His tone was a subtle challenge to the _Salatis_. "We have ruled for tens of millennia. The fleets of Atok and Apep which were defeated within the Traverse are but a shadow of what we are today." He cocked his head. "And it is clear these people are not some superstitious _tarn'se'ket."_ He stuck out his chest and breathed in and raised his shoulders. "Like I said, ship master," he used her title with derision, even though she was superior, "they use primitive kinetic weaponry and missiles and their ships are unshielded and poorly armored. We will defeat them."

The Traverse had broken the power of Atok and allowed his son, Apep to overthrow him. And Apep's own defeat and the loss of his queen in the Traverse had led to the rise of Anubis and thrown the Goa'uld Empire into chaos. The Dynasty had been significantly weakened by the great wars between Anubis and his allies and Ra and his.

Sacmis knew the argument was lost. The glider commander was encouraged by his master and with the _Hasykos_ at his back, was untouchable. They were moving into a region with little intelligence and repeating mistakes Sacmis knew would lead to their doom. But she could do nothing. She was as impotent as a slave to the will of her master, the will of the _Hasykos_ Rhadmet.

Rhadmet brought up his hand, the _kara kesh_ illuminating to a soft blue it dimmed the artificial lights and set a tempered glow on everyone's face. It indicated an end of the council and that a decision, a binding decision which could not be countered by anyone present, had been reached. "We will pursue and we will recover our stolen technology and destroy them. There is no more debate." He glared at _Salatis_ Sacmis who lowered her eyes in submission. "_Salatis _Sacmis, you will receive a battle plan I shall prepare. We shall overtake them within the week. And we shall destroy them."

* * *

Nizsim had lingered in the conference room with Rhadmet and another Goa'uld, Fartun, for several minutes discussing strategy and tactics for the upcoming battle. Sacmis had left quickly, returning to the pel'tak, with Gilkan on her heels and quite clearly angry at that all, her fellow ship master included.

She and Gilkan had seen battle together. But he was also older, nearly half a millennia, and Sokar had assigned him as _her_ second, an insult. It was punishment for the loss of three _Ha'tak_ mother ships ambushed by Lord Ba'al some years ago, a loss Sokar had yet to forgive.

The glider commander, remembering the power struggles and politics within Sokar's Court had been more than content with the progress of their strategy session. Now he dismissed himself and continued to maneuver through the labyinrth of corridors and passages within the massive _Ha'tak_, excusing himself from the afternoon meal with Rhadmet and the others on the excuse that his Jaffa were too incompetent to prepare for this battle without his oversight.

Currently he was walking towards the glider bay but instead of moving directly to the bay he had taken a turn and was moving down an ancillary corridor seldom used by the crew. It led to storage compartments and energy relays that ran from the massive engine room at the center of the ship to the staff canon turrets dotting the outer hull. But even here he could hear the pounding feet of Jaffa patrolling the ship as they stomped through the corridors. The low hum of the energy conduits behind the bulkhead were the only other sounds. His gait, while wide, was casually paced and his feet fell with all the sound of a dropped feather.

Seven Jaffa, led by a group leader, separated quickly on seeing him approach.

The Jaffa braced the bulkheads as he came by, saluted, and nodded their heads respectfully. As a Goa'uld, their superior, he did nothing to acknowledge. He continued walking with shoulders back, in the center of the corridor, and head held high.

The black eyeliner encircling his eyes gave him the same menacing look that many Goa'uld used on those below them and if he were like the other Goa'uld he would have smiled at the fear- not respect- the Jaffa showed him.

At a junction he took a turn to the left and stopped in front of a cargo and storage room. He extended his left hand and waved his _kara ur _in front of the access pad. The door opened to sound of stone grinding on stone.

There was a lone Jaffa in the center of the room, a computer tablet resting on his forearm. He about faced quickly and stood at attention until the hatch slammed shut, upon which he visibly relaxed and stepped towards the Goa'uld.

"My lord," he whispered, quickly nodding his head.

Nizsim nodded back and tapped a small turquoise colored orb on the inner part of his gauntlet. Each man could feel a slight tingling sensation, static, as the dampening field activated. Their conversation would not be heard.

The Jaffa looked nervous, but Nizsim grabbed his shoulders and held tight. "Steady yourself, friend, soon we'll strike. We've spent years working together… this has been a long time in planning and I threw my support behind the idiot _Hasykos_. I told him everything he wanted to hear. This will work. He will be dead and Sacmis as well… one of Sokar's best commanders." His voice was not hard and artificial sounding like so many Goa'uld and instead was natural and smooth. The host was speaking. The left side of his mouth cracked up into a sly grin. "Jaffa and Tok'ra together… what type of strange galaxy do we live in?"

Fer'tak, a large man with square jaw and short-cropped brown hair, tore his eyes from the gold-colored doors and focused on the Tok'ra. "Indeed, my lord." Even in the secluded storage compartment he still referred to the Tok'ra by his Goa'uld title. "We have enough Jaffa for nine gliders, ten including your own."

The Tok'ra sensed apprehension, dread on the tongue of the Jaffa rebel. He even sensed hesitation.

"It is always difficult in such wars. In this we fight brother against brother and sister against sister. It is the horror the Goa'uld Dynasty has forced all of us into."

The Jaffa closed his eyes and slowly sighed. "I understand. I only wish there was another way. But I understand some brothers must die for the Jaffa people to one day be free. Teal'c has been an inspiration to us all."

The Jaffa felt the symbiote inside his pouch and suppressed a shiver. On his forehead, in his very body were the signs and symptoms of enslavement to an alien parasite. Billions of his people had died fighting each other. He could already imagine himself with his hands around the neck of Sokar, squeezing the life out of the pale, evil thing and tossing his body into the lake of fire he used to torture and execute his enemies.

Nizsim released the Jaffa's shoulders and hit him once with an open palm on the side of the triceps. "Good. I also have two agents on board who will disable the engines of this very vessel. They will be unable to flee and their maneuverability will be greatly restricted." The Jaffa winced; his lips curling back to expose his teeth in disagreement with the plan. "You're concerned that won't be enough?" The Jaffa nodded. "Do not hold your tongue."

"I have seen the video footage you recorded, my lord. Are their ships capable of standing against Sokar's Own?"

"I modified the scanner logs from my glider before giving them to Rhadmet. I made them sound very weak and primitive."

"I hesitate to doubt your plan, my lord, but-"

The glider commander reached into his tunic and produced a handful of slender blue rods two centimeters long and almost as thin as papyrus. "These are transponder codes. Distribute these to our pilots and instruct them to not activate them until we begin our assault on the _Hasykos_'s forces." Fer'tak took the crystals and hid them in a pouch on his thigh. He nodded carefully to acknowledge his confidence in the Tok'ra's plan. "Once we begin the attack I will transmit to the vessel I believe now holds Teal'c. Hopefully these people listen to reason and will accept our offer of surrender… which we must give in order to not be destroyed, Fer'tak. But in the confusion of battle, the fog can become thick. We may lose some of our own to their fire. Be prepared for this, my friend."

Fer'tak patted the pouch holding the data crystals. His jaw clenched and his eyes were fire. His first act of true defiance against these false gods was approaching quickly. His heart was heavy for the thousands of brother Jaffa who would die on these two _Ha'taks_ but this was a symbol. And Jaffa were no strangers to sacrificing their own for a greater goal above and beyond the life of any single Jaffa or even thousands of their brothers. Billions of Jaffa and humans and aliens were enslaved to false gods who used them as nothing more than pawns in a galactic game of domination and war.

The bloodlust of the Goa'uld and the burning, raging fire in their bellies for conquest would never be satiated. Only a dagger driven into their black hearts could stay the Goa'uld and free the galaxy.

The Jaffa breathed in deeply and nodded once, slowly but with a resolve which told the Tok'ra he was committed beyond doubt.

"I will distribute these to our men, my lord." He looked over Nizsim's shoulder and his eyes narrowed, the whites shining as they caught the light. "It is my first strike against the false gods. I am forever in your debt for trusting me. _Sel'kak nebron,"_ the Jaffa said, 'I will die free'.

* * *

AN: On firepower... I don't want all the reviews to just focus on firepower and shields and all that, please. There's a lot of examples of firepower in the show which runs the gauntlet between weak and pretty impressive. I don't like writing stories where it's a math argument, so I'm using author's discretion on how many Colonial ships will be required for taking on a _Ha'tak_, though I think the last scene foreshadowed what will be happening.

That said I am very grateful for all the reviews and those who've been adding the story to favorites/alerts. Reviews are great but I ask that they not become an argument over the firepower/shields/armor and all that.

Just a few notes on some things: The prayer Daniel translates is from Season Two, Track 8 of the soundtrack. I'm not sure if I spelled the 'Sel'kak nebron' properly, I had to rewind the Hulu episode a few times.

The changes to the Caprica canon were made to be consistent with _From Glory to Ash_. The Adama family was not involved in the creation of the Cylons. The other changes will become relevant in later chapters.

I hope everyone enjoyed that chapter! It was a little long there and I'm going to try to keep them at least less than 12,000 words but sometimes they just keep expanding.


	9. Chapter 9

**Deep Space**

**Raptor Reconnaissance **

There was a momentary surge of energy and a bright blue-white flash which illuminated part of _Valkyrie_'s hull. Instantaneously a hole was ripped through space and time as a black-as-night Raptor S tore through the very fabric of the universe. At the pre-determined location a second blue-white flash snapped the craft back from its existence and non-existence and spat it back into the living universe.

Even after years, hundreds of jumps, the nausea still affected Captain Antony Nikon but his training pushed the unflattering feeling deep back into his core and he pulled back on the thrust lever and side stick, compensating for the spatial distortion chop which tended to rock a small craft. On the nose a pair of thrusters activated, spewing a white gaseous cloud into space. The starboard thruster bank activated a second later as the computer compensated. The Raptor pilot pushed

He looked off to the side, through the large canopy of the Raptor-S out towards the stars after engaging the necessary steps (in effect pressing three buttons in the correct order) to put the Raptor-S into stealth mode. They were so many light seconds out that they were impossible to see. Only the massive, burning stars, no larger than pin pricks in the black curtain of sky were visible.

Some religious cults following Helios Penoptes believed the stars to be the living embodiments of the Lords of Kobol.

Sometimes Nikon could see why; the stars were, to him and others, infinite and the givers of life throughout the universe. They could give life and take it away- much like the Gods.

Now they knew many of those stars were indeed the givers of life to an untold number of planets. Helios Penoptes would undoubtedly be elevated from a minor deity by many of his fellow citizens. A sizeable number of his friends and fellow Fleet personnel worshipped the sun god as a minor household deity.

A galaxy once described as barren, lifeless, and hostile was filled with life and that was something many, including him, were still having difficulty coming to terms with. For so many years they'd been told the galaxy was barren and hard.

The feelings in the battlestar group were mixed with trepidation, fear, and most important of all to Premie, excitement. This was an event. Discovering the final destination of the Thirteenth, a galaxy filled with aliens was an event which occurred only once every couple of generations which would shape and define a society for dozens of generations, centuries. The wardrooms, mess halls, and rec rooms were filled with conversation about the SG Teams- what little information was public. When O'Neill or Ramos and especially Teal'c were moved through the Marine-lined corridors of _Valkyrie_ the crew looked on, at a distance, with an abstract wonder, almost bordering on celebrity.

Premie scoffed. The media dogs that specialized in chasing celebrities would have a field day with SG1 and SG8 when they got back… if this wasn't covered up. Nikon didn't see how it could be, not completely. Too many people knew and with the rumors too many in the crew may find it their religious duty to reveal to the Colonies what happened despite being ordered not to. Personally he would take whatever orders were issued. His whole career was based in secrecy… the number of times he'd flown recon in Cylon space all the while, on paper, he was out doing 'training exercises' in deep, dark space way off the beaten path of commercial freighters and recreational space vehicles.

He checked the mission clock; -008:33:22. The digits blinked, counting down silently, and Nikon rested his head on the back of his seat, trying to get as comfortable as he could. He was on a nine hour mission deployment. The last twenty-seven minutes had been him and his temporary ECO, Bulldog, checking DRADIS sweeps, checking systems, and performing a slew of system checks and 'make work' checks which accompanied each recon mission and each FTL jump.

This was but one part of the standard operating procedures, SOP, that went along with the situation BSG-41 was in. While unique (retreating from an alien world) the Fleet had developed hundreds of SOPs for almost any situation. And if there wasn't an SOP for a situation there was an SOP to design an SOP for the situation.

Raptors, in this case the stealth Raptor-S's and _Nyx_ stealthstars _Valkyrie_ had at her disposal would be position 'behind' the fleet in a rearguard alpha-one search pattern. The groups Raptor contingent would be deployed in half a dozen different locations ahead of the battlestar group. If one location was reported hostile or unsafe the group could jump to one of five other locations without having to recalculate the coordinates, assuming the battlestar group didn't move more than a certain number of Stellar Units at sub-light between the calculations being made and the Raptor returning- the exact number was classified and compartmentalized.

Antony sighed into his helmet then coughed patting his chest; he'd forgotten to brush his teeth before the mission and in the second before his suit's air filters could clean the smell, he got a good whiff of his breakfast. The ship's galley had cooked up some nasty-as-shit Aquaria favorite, since the senior chief in charge of the main galley was from Aquaria, which involved smashed cherries, hash, pieces of beef and all mixed with cow blood. It was disgusting but supposedly 'high in protein and iron' and thus automatically 'healthy.'

His shoulders slumped down and he loosened his shock harness with a press of a button on the side of the seat. There wasn't much room in the cockpit but he was stuck up here for eight more hours.

With a slow moving hand he extended his middle finger to his right sleeve and dimmed the blue lights on his helmet. Down in the corner, nestled between the seat and the Raptor's hull were two books; one was on Admiral Kessandra Makos, _A Time to Sacrifice_, a biography by one of her former aides, detailing the last decade of her life before being killed towards the end of the Cylon War. Uppity, the _Valkyrie_ BSG CAG had recommended it. The CAG was a Caprican by birth and like almost all Capricans, idolized the Cylon War admiral.

The Colonial officer corps was made up disproportionately of Capricans and Taurons. Picon, with its long history of military rule had maintained its military traditions and was represented third in the officer and enlisted corps, half a percentage point above Virgon. One of two planets with a monarchy which still yielded power, the other being Leonis, the Virgon aristocracy, gentry, and yeoman classes still viewed military services as a prelude to professional careers such as medicine, law, business, and politics.

Aerilon, Canceron, Sagittaron, and Aquaria were four planets which were routinely criticized within the Colonies for not 'pulling their weight'. During the War the Make Peace movement had been centered on Aquaria.

Sagittaron, which had seen fighting and death rivaling Tauron, believed Colonial militarism and a history of violence had been the cause of the Cylon War. The need of each alliance of planets to subdue their economic, political, and military rivals had led to the creation of the Cylon and Spartoi. Without the mechanical monsters Sagittaron's cities would still be standing, and nearly a billion of its citizens would have still been alive.

The planet was generally disliked in the Colonies and easy to stereotype. Sagittarons didn't like to travel much and were the primary technophobic planet with the lowest ratios of computers, cell phones, Mesh connections, and h-band users in the Colonies.

While Premie was more neutral on the whole Sagittaron issue he understood why people tended to have a short fuse with them. They didn't accept their responsibility for the Cylon War and instead blamed Caprica and Tauron and those two planets' historical rivalry for the Cylon War. The Sagittaron president at the start of the war had been the first to call it the 'Cylon War' which the neutral planets who'd not been involved in the Fifth Colonial Conflict instantly began using and the name stuck… much to the annoyance of Caprica, Picon, and Scorpia. In a way though, the Sagittarons were right. Gradually the Spartoi models were phased out by the robots until only Caprican or Caprica-derived Cylon designs remained. The Spartoi also began calling themselves Cylons with FID believing they began doing so to potentially split the early joint war effort by creating animosity between Caprica and Pact planets.

Sagittarons also disliked Admiral Makos, almost bordering on hatred. She led numerous raids against their planet which used kinetic penetrators to strike underground factories, killing a lot of people in the process. But the Fifth CC was a hard war and each side was using penetrators which had the nasty side-effect of causing a lot of collateral damage when industrial and residential zones were built so close together.

Within the Caprican officer corps Admiral Makos had received a cult following. Sacrifices of lambs and bulls were made at her grave and many Caprican officers made pilgrimages there at some point in their careers. A few still considered it strange that a bull, the symbol of Tauron, would be sacrificed at the grave of a Caprican admiral responsible for some of the most horrendous losses suffered by Tauron during the Fifth Colonial Conflict. Her battle plan at the Star Cross Point had resulted in a lopsided victory for Caprica-Scorpia-Picon in which they destroyed almost three times the tonnage of Diadalos Pact warships.

Yet she'd been a visionary. She had recognized the grave state the individual militaries were in after the Cylons and Spartoi struck at their respective masters.

When Admiral Cain had jumped to Caprica requesting an alliance in the first week of the war on behalf of the Unified Tauron Republics she'd welcomed him aboard her flagship and given him full military honors a man of his rank and reputation was due. She and Bernard Cain had been the first to declare an end to the Fifth Colonial Conflict and stand side-by-side as allies. The two admirals were also privy to be one a dozen men and women selected from each of the Twelve Colonies to sign their name to the Articles of Colonization which had united the worlds and tens of billions of Colonial citizens.

The second was a fun alternate history of Virgon's fifth to sixth centuries, _Tale of Twin Fire Daggers, _set during the times of discovery and rebirth, after the Great Death, and was narrated by a fictional adventurer, archeologist, and anthropologist as he tamed Virgon's wilderness and fought its non-existent native sentients for control of a pair of titular fire daggers which would control both time and space. Apparently the book was part of a series that had been made into a trilogy of movies and bunch of interactive H-band game.

The captain let his gloved hand fall to the books, tapping them as he thought which one to pick up. The battlestar had every book ever written in its digital library and only a small collection of actual, physical books on hand. Premie had brought the former on board in his F-duffel from _Argus_ to _Picket 7-1-5_. All Colonial warships, no matter the size, always seemed to maintain a small collection of books, actual books, on various Colonial heroes, especially the Cylon War era heroes such as Makos, Cain, Iro, and Kronus.

_Modern Fleet Tactics Utilizing FTL Hyper-Jump Capability, _written sixty-one years ago by a then Commander (or with the old Tauron ranks, Captain) Bernard Cain had been his book of choice when sitting in his old Raptor-S when on recon at the Armistice Line. His personal copy, the one his father had given him on commissioning, had been burned to ash light years away.

A mere book, no matter its sentimental value, could compare to the loss of a friend. Fruity's death had hit the squadron hard. Stealth pilots from _Argus_ were tight; friends, who went on leave together, got drunk in bars together and were covenantor parents to their fellow-pilot's children.

It would be tough to find a career Fleet officer who didn't read that book at least once every other year cover to cover, in all its fifteen hundred and seven page glory which included everything from text to diagrams. When it was originally written it had been a classified manual only a select group of _Diadalos Pact_ fleet officers had access to. Cain's tactics had transferred from theory to practicality with numerous embarrassing defeats on the Caprica-Picon-Scorpion alliance in the opening weeks of the Fifth Colonial Conflict. Once the Cylon War had begun the manual was copied and distributed to the officer corps on all twelve colonies.

Premie pulled up _Tale of Twin Fire Daggers_, something fun for a change of pace and started thumbing through the pages, reading quickly but not really getting anything out of it. He kept looking back up at the mission clock; -007:45:44

"Have you given any more thought to going career, Bulldog?" Premie scooted in his seat and turned his head to face the younger pilot and ECO. His helmet bumped on a metal rung, earning a muttered curse from him.

Regulations stated that pilots and the ECO were required to keep helmets on at all times during recon missions in which contact with the enemy was 'probable.' Premie, while used to wearing the helmet for long periods, would have loved to take it off. The only times regulations permitted the removal of a helmet was every one hundred and fifty minutes for water or during emergencies.

Premie could see through the semi-transparent comp sheet that his ECO was watching a movie. Any DRADIS contacts, no matter how brief, would have elicited a series of three shrill beeps on both Premie's standard flight DRADIS monitor Bulldog's much more detailed ECO console. Picket duties like this were pretty boring. The allure of flying a stealth craft into Cylon space was able to get a lot of hot shot pilots to sign up, but the recruiters for the stealth program always ran everyone through psychological testing before revealing the nature of the program. While they wanted hot shots they didn't want hot heads. Being a Raptor-S and _Nyx_ pilot meant a lot of boring picket duties with engines cold and watching DRADIS screen and sitting with their thumb in their ass not doing anything 'exciting.'

"I don't know," Bulldog pressed his thumb into the corner and paused the video. "I've still got a lot of thinking…" he shrugged and swiveled his seat towards the cockpit. "I had a job offer with my cousin who could use some VTOL pilots… he's a general manager for a timber company and they need someone to fly men and machines up into remote spots and stuff. Easy work and good pay."

"Honestly… sounds kind of boring, Bulldog. Compared to this?" Premie gestured out the cockpit towards the stars. Mentally he admitted the picket duty to being about as exciting as watching paint dry but even then being in space and doing anything out here, even sitting and picketing, was a lot better than playing air taxi.

"I guess… but I never really planned on staying in past six or seven years." He sounded distracted.

Bulldog slowly and methodically folded up the comp sheet, making sure the fold was half and half and tucked it back into a little transparent pocket on his thigh. If he could look in a mirror he'd see himself looking worried, concerned about the future. A month ago he'd have been leaning to get out of the service and be a VTOL pilot and settle down. He already had six and a half years in and had spent the last two and a half as a _Nyx_ and Raptor-S pilot. Even as one of countless pilots in the Fleet he'd been able to do things only a small and select group had ever done. He'd lived the life presented in those recruiting ads.

"But I was also thinking of going back to university and getting a masters in criminal psychology or computer forensics," Bulldog continued, looking off as he thought. His nose wrinkled in his helmet. "My uncle was a cop with the Aquaria GDD. But he works for Section Nine now. He said they always need more pilots for their assault ships…" he began to trail off, "and that's something, too. It isn't really fighting Cylons but I have the necessary clearance-"

"It's stopping people from trafficking in Cylon parts or trying to reactive the ones they find. No, that's a good job, too. They're pretty small though, selective. Whatever you decide, Bulldog…" Premie nodded once to show his support, "and I'll send a good letter out. I'm positive Commander Donnis will do the same."

"I appreciate it, Premie. Yeah, I just never really planned to stay in. And our jobs really are kind of hard to start a family. Frak, Fruity wanted to have kids. Chandra… you going to see her?"

Captain Nikon closed his eyes for a moment, his fist balling on his knee. He wanted to tear the Goa'uld and their Jaffa frakers limb-from-limb. "Yeah, I'm gonna tell her. I'll go with Sister Linn, get in contact with her… I know they liked her. Her temple services were good…"

"If I get married, which I plan on it, I just don't want my wife to worry about that. Section Nine is dangerous but not this dangerous." Bulldog knocked the ECO console.

"I can understand that," Premie said, "because I didn't think I was going to stay in, but it's a decision I haven't regretted." He smiled to himself. It was always the people who made everything worth it. The Fleet was no different. "There's the pension and benefits after… you know. But we're going to need everyone we can get now."

"I hope you're wrong, I honestly hope you're wrong, Premie. And Upland and Adama, too and everyone else on this." He leaned his helmet into his right hand and jiggled it, attempting to massage his temple. He was privy to the classified briefings essential personnel had received. "The last fraking thing we need is to fight some aliens with the cock sucking Cylons at our doorstep. If we can get back to the Colonies and be forgotten about then I'll take that any day. If Earth wants to play galactic hero, let them," he brought up his hand and pushed at the air, "better them then us." Bulldog paused but Premie started talking before he could fully finish. "I mean, if they want weapons or ships, fine. Some of them are our brothers and sisters so we have some obligation, we can't just throw them to the wolves. But… we have our own problems."

Bulldog mentally scowled. He didn't like the idea of leaving people to fend for themselves, but he'd seen some of the intelligence briefings and it seemed like Earth was getting on fine without the Colonies and the Colonies without Earth. A war with galaxy-spanning alien empires was the last thing he wanted to see the Colonies fight because the destruction of the Cylon War was still visible everywhere, even for those too young to have fought, those not born before the end.

Old bunkers, unexploded ordnance, minefields, and poisoned land littered the Colonies. There had been so much orbital debris over Caprica, Tauron, and Sagittaron it had taken years to clear.

He'd been involved in missions over the Armistice Line before. Keeping tabs on the Cylons was hard enough and the border and light years were paltry compared to the scale and scope of the galaxy.

"No," Premie shook his head, "We can't bury our heads in the sand. We should've been out there for centuries, helping, exploring, but I guess we were out in the shit frak end of nowhere. If O'Neill's right and Teal'c then we've made an enemy who won't stop and they won't honor any rules of war- they have none. Once we figure everything out we need to help Earth" He drummed his fingers.

"Even if they're monotheists for the most part?" Bulldog breathed in. "Sort of unsettling that cult would catch on."

"No one's perfect. And anyway, just because they're monos doesn't mean their version is the same as those STO nutcases and from what I understand it's not. And even if they're not Kobolian some of the Thirteenth got there. That makes us brothers and sisters with many of them and there's an obligation there even if the Thirteenth did make war on Kobol our tribes were vindictive and cruel… the Lords of Kobol punished us for our sins against our brothers so we can't just bury our heads and hope the galaxy doesn't notice us or just let Earth go it alone…"

"That's way above our pay grade."

Premie chuckled. "Yeah… Anyway I've got a recommendation sitting in my tablet for you, real nice and all Bulldog if you want to go career. You could make captain in a little over two years if you did."

"I'll think about it… I mean, I have been. If we get into a war yeah, I'll do it, of course, without thinking twice. Frak, I can't imagine the recruiters would have much trouble getting their quotas. But… actually, I might stay in if we get to go to Earth. I can't see them not trying to find…" Bulldog spun back as his ECO console blinked and whined. "You getting this, sir?"

"Affirmative!" Premie shouted back, his body turned back in his seat and his eyes locked on the DRADIS console.

"DRADIS contact three-one-two k-klicks…" Bulldog reported. He typed in a short command and stared, mouth open, at the top left screen as the DRADIS computers compiled an image. "Frak, it's two of those Ha'tak ships… additional DRADIS contact. Eight contact and closing fast, time to intercept-"

"Spool up the FTL now, Bulldog."

"Engines spooling… spooled up, sir."

"Jump!" Premie slammed the jump key with his fist. Seconds later golden plasma bolts laced the region of space the Raptor-S had been in.

* * *

**BS-41 Valkyrie**

**Deep Space**

Colonel Tigh and Commander Adama exchanged quick looks as a green DRADIS blip blinked twice and then disappeared. The CIC was a hive of activity with dozens of staff plugging away on consoles, monitoring DRADIS, and directing communications between the five ships of Battlestar Group-41. Both Tigh and Adama had asked for an 'easy' morning over their daily breakfast, commenting to each other how it'd be nice to get back to normal. That normal being where the only threat to the Colonies were genocidal, homicidal one-eyed robots and not evil space snakes with god complexes.

The XO signed off on a work order, grumbling something under his breath as he pressed a quick thumb down for a signature instead of signing his name. That meant orders were already being processed and maintenance teams would assemble for the repairs.

A quick glance revealed a bank of portside thrusters had seen a decrease in the weekly thrust output tests and a starboard running light were in need of replacement. The latter meant an EVA which meant the XO's signature and approval.

"Never seems to stop, Bill," Tigh grunted as the petty officer who'd delivered the forms hurried away. "There's always something breaking." He picked up another sheet with battle simulation scheduled for 1330 this afternoon. The pilots in the BSG were going to be conducting simulated space combat in a dense asteroid field with a tyllium refinery in the center guarded by a numerically superior Cylon force. "You gonna have time to watch the sim?"

Tigh smirked to himself and tossed the sheet back down. Comp sheets weren't too heavy and it waffled forward and backwards on the air. Data on the Goa'uld death gliders was extremely sparse even with O'Neill and Teal'c offering their insight into the combat capabilities of the craft.

His old friend grinned but kept his attention on the command console, studying local star charts and space phenomena. "Battlestars are expensive to run…" he shook his head, "no on the sim. I have an inspection in engineering…"

"And I have reports to go over with the TO," Tigh finished, remembering the plethora of activities his yeoman had scheduled for the afternoon. Tigh hated meeting with the training officer since the two tended to butt heads, not seeing eye-to-eye on anything and seeing the TO as too soft. The TO had a chip on her shoulder and had put in a transfer request to the fleet station _Myrmidon_ twice in eight months.

Unfortunately DEPERMAN, the Department of Personnel Management hadn't moved fast enough on her paperwork, so they were still stuck with her. And somewhere along the line she'd gone from an outstanding officer to what Tigh consider an ingrate. Still, she was managing to at least do her job, not least because her department was top notch and carrying her dead weight.

A quick double-beep brought both men's attention up to the overhanging DRADIS monitors.

"_Nyx_-0563 has jumped, Commander," the tactical officer reported from his console.

That made two _Nyx_ stealth stars and a single _Raptor-S_ as rear scouts.

The first _Nyx_ had jumped an hour ago and the Raptor-S, with Captain Nikon and Lieutenant Novacek a bit before that. Tigh looked up to a monitor to confirm. Along with the stealthstars and Raptors out on picket duties the monitor listed the rest of the CAP.

The Old Man nodded to Tigh and turned his head until he saw the young officer in the corner of his eye. "Thank you, captain. Tactical; recall the CAP. Navigation; begin jump countdown- ten minutes." Commander Adama gave a nod to Colonel Tigh to oversee the operation. The Old Man's right hand man took a step away from the command console and walked towards the navigation console, stopping at tactical.

The XO didn't care to linger over the navigators but either the XO or the senior watch stander was tasked with overseeing FTL operations.

"Recalling CAP, aye, sir."

The CAP for a BSG was eighteen Vipers and six Raptors, split into six groups, with three or four sections launched during the day and patrolling for six to eight hours at a time positioned at the points on a three-dimensional diamond and spaced out a hundred kilometers from the farthest capitol ship.

Currently _Valkyrie_ took a forward center position in the formation with _Gorgon_ to the rear and above the flagship. _Pan_, _Attia_, and _Chios_ were positioned at the flanks. Each ship held their positions at roughly forty kilometers from the other. In space the formation was considered tight. Ships would generally cruise at hundreds of kilometers from the other to prevent damage from any sort of accident or nuclear explosions should they be attacked.

The current formation was dictated by the battle tactics the SG Teams had claimed the Goa'uld utilized; come in close and blast a ship to pieces. It was an aggressive tactic the Fleet was well-trained to counter. Each ship was in a support position and could quickly reposition. While each warship did utilize kinetic canons the attackstars and battlestars were newer constructs and had plenty of missiles for non-LOS engagements. If it came down to it _Valkyrie_ or _Gorgon_ could maneuver to take the hits the more thin-skinned and smaller attackstars couldn't.

It would take approximately four minutes for the CAP to return to the ships under cruise speeds.

"Begin jump countdown, ten minutes, aye, sir." Chief Navigator Senior Chief Paulis Andres, a man slightly on the stocky side, mildly balding, and with a deep baritone immediately confirmed as he activated the initial systems required for a coordinate BSG-wide jump. The orders were relayed to the rest of the BSG.

The navigation department broke into action. They were one of the larger departments in CIC. At any one time two officers and five enlisted ratings, from petty officer to senior chief, were manning consoles necessary to drive the ship. One could do it but a battlestar demanded redundancy and the entire department had more responsibilities that just making sure the battlestar went in a straight line. Nav and Tactical operated as a unit and were positioned together on the starboard side of CIC, their console's and stations forming and oblong and uneven H.

The Navigation Officer, Captain Kessia Tavios took a step back and pressed her hand onto a palm scanner. Behind her, secured on a thick portion of the bulkhead a small metal door slid up with a mild hiss, revealing a safe. She typed in a six digit alphanumeric code, heard a click, and pulled on the handle, opening what could be the most precious piece of equipment in the ship; the jump key.

"Extracting jump key." She reported in a husky feminine monotone.

A Marine, Corporal Kopka, in a light vest for simple sentry and guard duty and a slung sub-machine gun stood close to Captain Tavios. She looked over at him, uncomfortably, as he seemed to linger over her. He took a step back, the tall Marine not wanting to cross the dark eyed woman whose face glowed with a fierce look from the illuminated data and activation rods of the FTL key.

Reaching in she wrapped thin but strong fingers around the metal base of a glowing double rectangular key, pointed at the end. She held it with something close to reverence. The key contained complex codes and circuitry required for an FTL jump. While she held it like it was rare Sulis crystal the key was in fact near indestructible. But it was reflex to treat the key like the slightly errant breath could shatter it.

The blue and red from each of the two rods glowed on her uniform as she brought it out and placed it into the main FTL control assembly.

"Jump key is extracted and inserted. Jump will occur in nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds, Commander."

She took a position behind the main jump console in a watchful post, not sure if she wanted her hands clasped in the front of in the small of her back. Tavios was an experienced navigator, her senior navigator pin- a gold rectangular device with a stylized twelve point starburst in the center and two silver pips in each top corner- over her left breast told as much, but this was her first tour as a battlestar's senior navigator.

The young captain wanted everything to go right which fed into an almost compulsive need to micro-manage her subordinates. But she'd been restraining herself and had felt the tickle of pride that she had yet to ask a pair of senior petty officers the status on the task she'd assigned them. Just thinking about the task- a simple navigation update for rogue comets, asteroids, and other hazards made her jaw twitch. She even felt herself leaning towards the console at the end of the navigator's row to go and check, but Brother Kline's advice and suggestions on mental exercises to calm her nerves kicked in and she felt herself relax. Tense neck muscles loosened and she flexed bent her neck sideways until she heard a soft series of pops.

Tavios closed her eyes for a moment and looking over the shoulder of her navigation chief she watched with a hawk's gaze as he typed in the numeric data sets which would jump _Valkyrie_ to a position within half a kilometer of the coordinates.

On her limited DRADIS screen Tavios could also see the BSG disperse by an additional thirty klicks to maintain a post-jump safety distances. Without commercial shipping or the need to jump right into battle all ships maintained minimum safe jump distances. Theoretically as long as the jump coordinates were properly typed in and a ship was a minimum of two kilometers away from the other jump collisions were impossible. In the vast distances involved in space, even a kilometer-long warship and spacing the ships seventy kilometers from the other was such a small distance it didn't even count as 'infintismal.' It was always better safe than sorry- an unofficial Fleet motto and the words every NavO lived by.

The last thing needed was a ship jumping into another ship. The spatial distortions or two ships appearing simultaneously in the same location would rip both ships to pieces instantly.

That's what the observer saw, at least. Non-geometric expansive spatial physics, the branch of physics which dealt with FTL, wireless, and DRADIS technology had dozens of competing theories about what 'truly' happened when two ships collided at the exact moment on an FTL arrival jump. Scientists had theorized that time within such a spatial distortion would slow down, that the crew would feel an agonizing death as the ship was ripped apart. For them it would be everything but instantaneous.

The thought sent a chill down her spine; if she went out she wanted to know it was coming but the thought of such a death was harrowing.

"All vessels at minimum distance for standard jump, sir," a junior petty officer at a tactical console reported over the murmured conversations of CIC.

"Coordinates entered for FTL jump." The Chief Navigator reported, looking up and over his shoulder at Tavios from the corner of his eye.

"Jump coordinates confirmed, sir," Tavios reported to Tigh, making quick eye contact and finishing with a nod.

The XO walked over and checked the coordinates displayed on his comp sheet and on the jump console. "Jump coordinates confirmed… keep on your toes, watch your energy readings," Tigh advised, turning back and taking a position next to the Old Man. "You have a feeling, Bill?"

The Old Man continued to study navigation charts and pushed a comp sheet towards the far edge of the console. "It hasn't gone away." He brought up and enlarged a map on the console and tapped the location of a blinking red icon. "We picked them up a week ago. Those ships we detected coming out of…"

"Hyperspace," Tigh grunted.

"Hyperspace. Teal'c said a Goa'uld doesn't give up easily, that they're vindictive. Their SOP is to chase if they believe they can destroy whoever offended them. And we offended them." Adama looked at his friend with a dipped chin. "Our SAR made us new enemies, Saul. We don't need more of them with the Cylons on our fraking border," he said in his whispered voice. "If we keep our R-S and _Nyx_ patrols pushed out for another week or so… no contacts, then I think we can start jumping directly back to our space."

Tigh groaned in the throaty, quick way he did when he disapproved. "Uppity and Premie came up with some good ideas but we know the Goa'uld can detect our stealth ships. The R-S and _Nyx_ are made of the same composites. No luck there. I'd feel a lot better if there was _Argus_ watching our six, Bill."

Adama gave his friend a small lip smile. The stealth battlestar was probably the one thing Adama also wanted her more than anything else, over even a _Mercury_. It wasn't as heavily armed as a battlestar her size should be, but had an extra two squadrons of stealth stars which bucket loads of small anti-ship nukes the small attack/recon craft could carry in missile bays.

"Premie did report that the death glider was close, appeared almost out of nowhere. So unless something similar happens-"

Tigh finished the thought for Adama. "We don't know the range limit for detection."

"Exactly." Adama bowed his head slightly. "But we don't know if they can track us."

"That's pretty hard to do. They said they've never seen a FTL like ours before. The jump techs have no idea and Amorak's a bit wishy washy on that point. The best she can give me is a 'maybe, maybe not.'" Tigh's eyes narrowed and he made a loose fist to bat on the console softly. "She needs to get her head in the game," the XO whispered, turning to face his friend, "she's moody, she's late to briefings, and was about to yell at you sir-"

"She killed people, Saul. That's hard to take. Even if they were shooting at her."

The Colonel held his tongue. His friend had always been more lenient with the crew, more willing to let things slide due to outside circumstances. _If_ they were valid. Apparently the Old Man considered this one valid. But Tigh still had to voice his opinion.

The major had been close to disrespecting her CO yesterday morning. Luckily Tigh had been the only one with them when she gave a classified progress report on the _tel'tak_ analysis. She'd been very lucky no one else was in there. Tigh knew the Old Man could tolerate mild insubordination, in Tigh's opinion, in private where he could get up close and shut down the fraker before it got to be an issue. But publicly? No fraking way. The Old Man had demoted a Viper pilot four years ago on the spot for gross insubordination which had ruined the pilot's career.

Tigh couldn't help but pick up the idea there was a sense of entitlement from her. And he hated that, despised that. He wasn't some blinded old coot who was all idealistic like some of the young crew. He knew the greasy underbelly that existed within the Colonies. Despite proclamations everyone was equal under the law there were the powerful oligarchies which persisted and the large royal families of Virgon and Leonis which still clung to power and the privileges of aristocracy. Frak, they had a basileus on _Valkyrie_.

The Colonel also knew how much the Colonies had changed after the Cylon War which had destroyed much of the old order as collateral damage from all the destruction the robotic menace had dealt to the Colonies.

Colonel Tigh's thoughts refocused on one Jessica Amorak; a poster child for class and privilege and wealth, who'd have everything. The strings her family could pull subverted the chain of command and Tigh was forced to hide his dislike, both professionally and as a private citizen, at such abuses while he was still in the Fleet. Bucking the higher ups wasn't something he was prepared to do. And as much as he didn't like some of the problems in the Fleet he'd take it over the merchant marine and rusty hatches and dimly lit corridors now and tomorrow.

"I told you about Tenios City, Bill, on Sagittaron, right?" It was more of a statement than a question.

Adama felt a need to answer it anyway "Yes, you have. We all had to face situations like that. The Cylons were brutal."

Colonel Tigh lowered his voice to almost a whisper. "Killing our own to prevent the Cylons from torturing them, bombing a Cylon base we _know_ had thousands of civilians? It's not different, Bill, it's a lot worse."

"Those were different times," Adama said in Amorak's defense. "And I'm not defending her, Saul. When we were fighting we went from one fight to the next. You especially down there in the ruins. We didn't have time to sit back and think about what was happening. We did or died."

"If you-"

"DRADIS contact!" The chief tactical watch stander reported. "Bearing - one -four-three-point-two, carom… minus three-one. Range at four hundred fifty-two k-klicks… IFF confirms it is Raptor 053."

"What the frak is he doing back?" the XO asked, hovering over the command console, looking at the back of Adama's head. He had the sinking feeling this was one of those _not good_ moments and the subtle shifts and changes in his old friend's body language confirmed it. That little feeling his friend had had wasn't ever wrong.

Commander Adama pointed to his wireless receiver and the comm. officer transferred the wireless. "Premie, this is _Valkyrie Actual_. Report."

"_Valkyrie Actual this is Premie reporting… we're declaring an Epison Charlie, repeat Epslion Charlie at time 1207:16 hours… two Ha'tak class mother ships…"_

_

* * *

_

**Lokasna**

**In Orbit of Helios Minor, Colonial Space**

Hiro Namadia, a middle-aged woman hailing from the chilly planet of Aquaria, looked across her office, towards the industrial-gray clock and bared her teeth at it, silently growling. She pushed a laptop to the side and took out a comp-sheet which had begun glowing an annoying vomit green-yellow color minutes ago. Unable to resist the flashing which told her there was an 'urgent' message waiting she picked it up and with a swipe of her thumb turned it off.

She stood up and grabbed her laptop, feeling the warm battery in her palm and paced from the rear of her office to the center; centering herself on a small couch she loosened the top button of her black tunic, blue trouser uniform. Even on a couch she could feel the vibrations coursing up through the metal of the base as more caverns were excavated to expand the base.

Comfortable again she would try and get a little more work done before her next appointment- who didn't really even have an appointment- arrived on base and strolled into her office like it was his Gods given right to.

The near barren walls of her office, industrial in design, with the support rafters of the ceiling still visible, the walls a boring gray, and sparse personal decoration mirrored the planet outside. Lokasna was a dead, small, and frigid world. In an eccentric orbit it wobbled between two point two to two point five stellar units from the small, orange-red sun of Helios Minor. In the billions of years since the formation of the strange, perplexing stellar phenomenon known as the Cyrannus-Helios super star system, Lokasna had been battered by the intense gravitational forces of Helios Major and Minor pulling in stellar debris.

Something, at some point, had collided with the world, tearing a deep gash through its northern hemisphere, creating the Renik Gash, renamed from Lokasna Canyon after Paul Renik, a famous explorer from centuries ago established the first settlement on Lokasna, and leaving a crater nearly a thousand kilometer wide and tens of kilometers deep. Chunks of the planet were present in the Fenris Asteroid Belt, orbiting between Lokasna and Picon and the Nior Asteroid Field between Lokasna and the last planet of six planets within the Helios Minor Belt, Vida, a small gas giant forty-two thousand kilometers in diameter which was a ravishing deep blue with streaks of black and orbited by two dozen satellites.

Lokasna had the unfortunate distinction of being a planet contested in numerous wars due to its formerly rich tyllium mines, now mostly depleted after centuries of strip mining. Divisions of special forces Marines, robots, and later Cylons and Spartoi had fought both on and below its surface in the artificial caverns carved from years of exploitation.

The planet itself had had its tyllium reserves grossly overestimated, perhaps maliciously, maybe innocently by Picon exploration companies who'd been seeking development grants and tax breaks from their backers, the Empire of Renan, before Picon's unification. Renan had wanted to use the planet as a means to finance its wars to unify Picon but a Canceron fleet had wrestled control from Renan after its fleet had been decimated by the Federal Republic of Ancyra.

For thirty-two years the planet had remained under the control of Canceron until Caprica wrestled it away and presented it as a token of goodwill for an alliance with General Augustus Parro and his Boetian Allied Union which he used to finance his unification wars and establish the Picon Federal Union nearly two hundred and seventy years ago.

If the conditions were perfect one could see the gleaming blue jewel that was Picon- with the aid of magnification gear- from the surface. On one planet within view there were a little over four billion people living on thousands of islands. On this one there were barely twenty million people living in about two hundred and fifty official settlements of domed cities and underground caverns on a planet nearly four thousand kilometers in diameter.

There were also a few little special enclaves for people trying to escape the reach of the Twelve Colonies. Civilian intelligence kept tabs on those settlements due to the criminal activities which tended to emanate from such shady locations.

One of the more interesting groups on Lokasna was a moderately sied religious doomsday cult which had settled in Tunnel 065-A and 065-B and had converted them into actual livable space. With trees. Doomsday cults were uncommon in the Colonies. Millions still professed the Cylons to be the work of angered gods and they tried to hide away from civilization, either in the deep bowels of a planet, an asteroid, under the ocean, or anywhere they perceived was 'remote.'

The only claim to fame this planet had, despite its history in wars, was the Marine Camp Hanak, a permanent facility of respectable size which trained Marines in LOGNA- _LO_w _G_ravity, _N_o _A_tmosphere. Lokasna was rated at point three-one gravities and had a negligible atmosphere. Camp Hanak served as the major backbone of the economy on this miserable rock and millions of jobs were dependent on the many Marine divisions which cycled through.

The moons of the Twelve Colonies were sites for low-gee industry and mining and numerous large asteroids had been settled in the centuries since cheap spaceflight had become a reality. Wherever humans went war inevitable followed and men and women were needed for operations on those barren rocks.

Camp Hanak was not the only military installation on the planet. A weapon range existed in the northern hemisphere, where the fleet tested nuclear weapons on hardened targets on locations where the tyllium had already been depleted. The MILEMRERC-LOK, _M_ilitary _E_quipment and _M_unition _Re_adiness _R_eserve _C_ommand-_LOK_asna had dozens of facilities buried within the planet's artificial caverns and tunnels that housed thousands of various attack craft from the Cylon war with enough fuel and munitions to make them short-term operable in the event of Cylon attack.

Hiro Namadia was currently in a secret, well-hidden Fleet Intelligence Directorate base. Few knew of the base and FID and Colonial Section Seven kept close tabs on the roughly four hundred and fifty people with access to the facility. Entrance was from an underground maglev at Hanak. The base was large enough and had been undergoing enough expansion in recent years that the FID facility could get its supplies and fall under the DRADIS.

The bureaucracy required to run a military the size the Colonies required to defend the home worlds, hundreds of moons, space stations, and other star systems of strategic importance meant that a small facility of only a few hundred could be easily lost in the paperwork. It also helped that FID had low-level operatives at Camp Hanak who were just regular Fleet and Marine personnel with a side job to make sure no one found out about the secret facility.

On paper Hiro Namadia was only a colonel, and a terminal one at that, who'd be retiring in three years after failing to screen for commander rank. Her paper career was completely undistinguished, boring even, with postings on Caprica, Aerilon, Ragnar Anchorage, Myrmidon Fleet Station, and a long stint at the Corvus Tyllium Depot. 'Colonel' Hiro Namadia was just another run-of-the-mill Marine with a desk job. Her official job at Hanak was as a supply officer under the requisitions division which handled salvaging the equipment Marines broke when doing their LOGNA training.

Every once and a while she'd make her rounds to maintain her cover, bitch about some stupid Marine breaking something, and then get cursed behind her back as an incompetent fraker who only knew how to ride a desk in some dark and dank corner of the sprawling Camp Hanak.

After her wristwatch beeped Major General Hiro Namadia, commander of FID Facility Zero-Two-Three, returned to her desk and calmly drummed her fingers on the gray metal top as she awaited her next guest. Her appointments, not that the commander of a secret facility had many, had been cleared by her yeoman, a young man from Aerilon who'd joined the Fleet in search of adventure and opportunity. Being the glorified secretary to a major general might not seem like much but FID took care of its own. This was a stepping stone for him to something greater.

As her right fingers drummed her left hand brought a pleated pony tail over her shoulder. Her index and middle fingers played with the pleats as she looked out her 'window', a large HD screen, at the ruined landscape of Lokasna. She then re-buttoned the top of her tunic.

Facility Zero-Two-Three was accessible only by an old underground tram which was nearing a century since its initial construction. The entire little planet was laced with underground tunnels, secure from meteor strikes. Centuries of buildup had created enough manmade caverns, artificial craters, and so many other wonderful little hidey-holes which had been reinforced by obsessive-compulsive Picon engineers and now that they stood forgotten by time the military had gone gangbusters over building secret facilities on the gray world.

The transit tunnel barely held any pressure now and only the tram cars had any gravity plating. Using the maze of underground tunnels already built into the planet was a prime method to maintain the secrecy of the base. There were enough space ships which cruised by with gawking Colonial military enthusiasts with high powered optics staring down at Hanak and trying to find secret facilities so FID wasn't going to make it easy to find this one.

Roughly twenty-five percent of Lokasna was owned by the military and officially off-limits to publishing imagery of but with the Mesh running almost as strong as it had prior to the Cylon War it was impossible for the Colonial Cyber Command and the civilian Section Eight to effectively scrub the Mesh of all forms of classified photographs. But some things still remained secret through no small effort of the military and civilian intelligence agencies. Plus the base wasn't located within the 'off-limit' sectors.

The 'guest' General Namadia was waiting for had been spotted departing a private Fleet atmo-shuttle at a covert hanger in Camp Hanak and then jumping on a short aerospace Hopper which had deposited him at the tram station.

One hundred and ninety kilometers and twenty minutes later she could see the man, walking with a three man military escort, rounding the corners of the corridors in front of her office. She could see the overhead lights reflecting on the pin of the Colonial seal he wore on his suit lapel. Someone of his caliber just didn't drop by to some shit-piss planet, or super secret installation, for no reason. And she knew exactly why he was here.

There was a knock on the door and her yeoman entered, the guest barging in behind before he could stop the large man. Namadia, her icy emerald eyes locked on the guest, motioned for the yeoman, stepping forward to lay chase to the rude intruder, to stand off and close the door. He did so quietly as the man got from the door to her desk in a dozen large but elegant strides, the heels of his shining dress shoes clicking on the uncarpeted metal deck.

"Hiro, why wasn't I told sooner?"

"Nice to see you too, Tassos…" she remained seated but pushed her chair back and folded her arms. Her expression remained neutral as the imposing man in a suit walked quickly over and glared and loomed over the edge of her desk.

Major General Namadia cut the HD screen with a simple push of a button on the remote sitting by a cup of now cold coffee. The screen turned to gray as Hiro picked up the glass and took a sip of the cool beverage, just to give herself an extra few seconds before diving into what would undoubtedly be an unpleasant conversation. Or yelling match.

She folded her hands as Dr. Tassos Amorak, Major Amorak's sixty-eight year old father glared at her. His fingers went for the single buttoned middle button on his three-button suit, a suit probably costing a month's pay, even for a general, and a few shades darker than he was, and he pushed back the jacket, pulled up a seat and sat down, crossing his legs.

"Well?"

The major general continued to look at him, cocking her head to the left and the right. "Yes, I'm aware you weren't told, Doctor." Her tone was dry, almost mocking him for his demand, like he didn't understand the concept of 'classified' or 'need to know'. "It's FID business. There are things we keep classified, even from you."

"Not if they're going out to hunt Cylons, Hiro. And not if it involves my only daughter. I should have been told before you all went Cylon hunting."

"'General', if you please, doctor." She heard him snort and he looked away, undoubtedly rolling his eyes as he threw his hands together and rested them on his knees. "The past is the past. Calling me Hiro was the past. But our personal history doesn't give you the right to come in here, doctor, and demand I tell you anything. How many security regulations are you breaking now? And you weren't told because you aren't involved in the program anymore, Doctor Amorak."

"Well, Command certainly thought it prudent to inform me… after the fact. And I jumped on a private Fleet transport… the usual black ops stuff. No one knows I'm here and no one will." He waved a dismissal. "Are they going after the Cylons? By the fraking Gods if they are," he waged a finger, "I told you CORA wasn't ready. Not yet. The Cylons we kept active are ancient, _general_, by even our standards. Think of what the Cylons could be using now."

"You daughter and Doctor Baltar disagreed with your assessment. They've spent months finalizing the code and delivery method for CORA and if it works and if that truly is a stealth ship out there, spying on us, we can neutralize the Cylons. We can strike the Cylons and stop a war we all know will come… they're fraking robots, Doctor, they're patient."

"Is that supposed to be your argument?"

"Do you doubt your own daughter?"

"Yes."

Namadia caught herself before her jaw dropped, before her eyes went from neutral to hatred. Her nostrils flared as she took in a large breath. "Well, I don't. I know the genius and I know the dedication. She's a fleet officer-"

"Yes," he snickered, "a Fleet officer and off to play soldier while a brilliant career in the civilian world is pissed away." His expression went from an icy stare to a vengeful glare. A small scar running under his eyebrow, hard to see from his darker complexion, became more visible as he scowled at her. "And who talked her into a career in the military?" He crossed his legs and leaned back, draping his forearm over the back of the chair, content.

General Namadia bit the inside of her lower lip. She hated rhetorical questions and found them to be insulting and arrogant. And arrogance wasn't surprising coming from Dr. Amorak. She had a hand under her desk, hidden from view, and she used it to play with her belt buckle, feeling the small FID symbol for flag and general officers emblazoned in its center.

"There's more to life than money, Tassos. That may be the driving force behind many of the Amoraks, but not her. I can see why she joined and you could have, too, if you'd looked a bit harder and paid attention, actually participated in raising her." She paused. Tassos sat quietly, comfortably even, and didn't even bat an eyelash at her last comment, like he knew he'd fraked up but Namadia knew he'd never admit it. He was too proud and there was too much history between father and daughter for him to admit to anything, to give an inch. "She wanted to serve something larger. Duty. _Patriotism_."

"I thought we were on formalities, _general_?" He shifted. "And patriotism? I've designed more weapon systems for you," he jabbed a finger at the woman, "and the rest of the Fleet than anyone! No one can question my patriotism or dedication to defending humanity. We all have a place, all of us. Her place isn't in the Fleet playing soldier, drinking and playing cards or praying in your silly temples." His left eye partly closed. "I've seen how she turns off her upbringing at the drop of a hat, when a handsome man in uniform walks by…"

"You're ridiculous, Tassos," Namadia swallowed, licking her lips, staring back at him like he had no fraking clue. "I helped raise her, for almost three years, Tassos and I know no one forced her into _anything. _How can you be so cold, doubt her abilities?"

"I doubt how she applies herself, H."

"You bowed out of CORA. It's come a long way in recent months with her and Baltar. Gods know what progress she's made out there with Doctor Baltar if they've been successful." The general motioned off, towards the ceiling, towards space. "I pray to the Lords they were, that they're on their way back right now with a fraking Cylon."

"Or they're space debris, Hiro, dead. Another wonderful, ill-planned military expedition."

"We had to maintain our secrecy, Tassos. We had enough of time convincing Secretary Prestiok to go with the mission." She looked over at him, grinning, when his grunted his dislike for the Secretary. "I guess we can at least agree on politics…" she cut him off before he could add in the exception. "Except for religion, right?"

His nose wrinkled as his lips creased into a small smile. "Yes… but you shouldn't have done this. Not now, not with the Progs going extreme with their fraking apologist crap, bolster their anti-industrial, anti-science campaigns. Anything we do against the Cylons is seen by them as a provocation." He held up his hand and extended fingers and he ticked off everything the Progs deemed offended the Cylons; "More battlestars, more soldiers, new weapons, DRADIS buoys on the border… idiots." He hummed while looking down at the floor and then leaned forward. "A year or two for CORA- to make sure. But not now. Now was foolish. Eighteen months and you could have sent a _Mercury_ or a little later the new stealth battlestar. And we'd have CORA refined. What if the Cylons push to war immediately, right now?"

On the tip of her tongue Major General Namadia had 'You only object because you're not the one out there, because we didn't consult you' but held it back. She was a better woman than he was a man.

"There are risks in anything we do concerning the Cylons. Ignore them for thirty-four more years… they're machines. Their very nature means they can rebuild faster than us… We had approval for this mission from the Minister-"

"You said that… a politician covering his own ass, so please spare me anything about the Ministry being on our side. As a soldier you have to respect the president and his lackeys. I don't. What if the Ministry's hoping we get caught and the Cylons make a show of force? Embarrass the military. Even if the President's a Palladion he's allied himself with limp dick morons who'd rather play politics than face facts concerning the Cylons."

Outside the privacy of a secure office or his home, Tassos Amorak was much more pragmatic in his public image when it came to politics. Personally he was a supporter of the Colonial League, like much of the military, but publicly he kept himself apolitical.

Dr. Amorak continued to berate the major general. "You people were still reckless, throwing them out there… a mission to find Cylons would need two, three battlestar groups, not just one… this reeks of expendability."

"There were other concerns we had out there, Doctor, concerns you've been briefed on; the Cylon stealth ship, which necessitated sending a small number of powerful ships with stealth reconnaissance capabilities. If they had one operating out there they were testing it, seeing if our pickets could detect it. We have stealth ships, why not them? They could be in our space right now." She balled a fist, mildly pounding the table with it, "This is the most definitive sighting of the Cylons we've seen in years and we had to take the chance and see what the frak was out there. We can't just sit here while the Cylons could be surrounding us with our collective cocks in our asses!"

"Don't tell me what we need to do, _General_. We _both_ lived through the War."

"It was reckless for you to come here and for FID to tell you." She stood up. He was not phased by her opinion and displeasure at his knowledge of the mission. "They're on a mission. Commander Adama is an able battlestar CO and I'd trust him with my life, Tassos." Dr. Amorak stood up and stepped behind his chair, resting his hands on the sleek back after buttoning his jacket. General Namadia walked around her desk until she was standing in front of it. "Those battlestars and attackstars are top of the line and commanded by a man both Admiral Marak and Admiral Corman both trust implicitly."

"Whatever… you know why I never joined the military? Why no Amorak has?"

General Namadia smiled. The reply was sardonic. "Not enough money?"

In fact the Fleet paid its personnel very well and Namadia knew someone like Jessica would make far above and beyond the typical salary of a major. She also knew the Amorak trust fund was so large none of them or their descendents for generations would need to work. The general did give them credit; an Amorak which didn't work and didn't produce something spectacular was seen as a leach by the family and cut off. And the Amoraks had some amazingly ridiculous standards for what constituted 'spectacular.'

"No," Tassos waged a finger left and right, "it's because we can step back and look at something and tell the military when it's fraking stupid without the 'yes, sir, as you wish, sir' and the chain of command clouding our better judgment. I walked away from CORA because I didn't like where you were taking it, I had my doubts and it was my professional obligation. I _thought_ walking away would do enough to get your boss to realize he was being an idiot. But what did you do?" He turned around and paced to the small couch, twirling quickly back to face a General Namadia standing with her arms folded, scowl firmly rooted on her lightly tanned face. "You _order_ my daughter to come in and finish it. And you pay Gaius Baltar a wheelbarrow of cubits. And what does my daughter do?" He clocked his heels together and saluted indignantly. "Plays good soldier- yes sir, I'd like some more, sir! Worthless."

"You daughter's done a lot, a lot more than just CORA. There's reasons why we think it'll work… and frak, Tassos! You think we'd send her if we didn't, you think I'd put in my recommendation to command if I didn't think this could work? You haven't changed a bit… we also didn't relocated CORA here for the shits and giggles, either."

"Then why?"

"Because what we're working on, what your daughter is working on would make us all criminals. You want cold-hearted pragmatism, Tassos?" Namidia demanded, smacking her fist into the table. Amorak stood definitely tall and straight, shoulders pressed back with a raised chin. He nodded mere millimeters. "Because what we're doing… your daughter came to us five years ago with a proposal. When you left we were ready to bring you back, but she wanted you gone, Tassos, to protect you! We agreed. For different reasons… let's be brutally honest; you're more valuable to us." His head bobbed back, surprised. "Not even FID would or could protect us. We'd be on the hangman's noose before supper if the fraking politicians found out." As much as she didn't want to say more, FID was probably a month from bringing in Dr. Amorak anyway. It wasn't like she was breaking regulations telling him since it was her call to make… and a part of her would love to see his face when he realized what he'd walked out on. CORA was only a part of the anti-Cylon research occurring at Facility 023. She could see that he wanted to know with how he held himself with his weight slightly shifted onto his right foot and his left hand's fingers in his pocket, his thumb looped out. "What we've been working on in the lower levels could change everything."

The lower levels were buried nearly half a kilometer under the surface. Except for a few networked systems the base was cut off. Nothing in the secure decks, the lower decks, of this base had access to the outside. Comp sheets, laptops, and other electronic devices were kept down there and without wireless modems. Old fashioned data cables were required for any sort of network.

Everyone who went down there and came back up was thoroughly scanned with a full body scanner FID had developed which could detect the smallest of electronic devices even if they weren't on. Security was so tight the base had a shielded low-kiloton nuke as a self-destruct.

"What is it?"

"…not an it."

* * *

**BS-41 Valkyrie**

**Three Days Later**

"…another day in the life…" Melicia Upland repeated into her palm covering her mouth. Her hot breath warmed her as she wrapped a hand around her face to itch in front of her opposite ear, breathing on her wrist. She unfocused for a moment on the tablet screen, shaking her head to refocus she continued skimming reports.

Her eyes flicked down to the middle of the upper task bar at the clock. It was lunch- she could smell the tea and coffee her department drank by the liter- and she'd already been up since 0400. She preferred diet energy drinks and unfortunately on a battlestar that meant the disgusting mix from the soda fountains instead of drinking them from cans. So far she'd had a jaunt in the gym, on the treadmill and a short session of free weights followed by a ration bar, shower, and morning meetings with skimming reports had been basically all of her day so far. That meant her day would probably end in nine or ten hours, so not even halfway.

It was fairly typical for an intelligence officer or anyone on the battlestar. There were the few hours of excitement here and there, like there had been three days ago up until last night which were inevitably followed up by a lot of 'hurrying up and waiting' experiences. Right now there was nothing they could do. They were operating at Condition Two, which meant a heightened state of alert. Twenty hours ago they'd gone to Condition One for two hours and calculated a red line jump. The _Ha'taks_ still managed to follow them, somehow.

It was impossible to stay at Condition One indefinitely so Commander Adama had stepped the alert level down. The Goa'uld were catching up, slowly, but right now they were 'safe.' So crews went about their business, trying to relax when they could. The alert Viper numbers were doubled and Marine gunnery crews were at their stations around the clock. For the rest of the crew there was nothing they could do unless contact was made.

At this point she continued her routine of paperwork and executing her duties to the best of her abilities. There was still information to be gleaned from the SG Teams and _tel'tak_. It was just a matter of time.

The interrogations of the SG1 and SG8 personnel had exhausted what knowledge they were willing to share at this point. After Commander Adama had informed them of his intent to return to the Colonies, with them, they had not been in the mood to cooperate.

Commander Adama hadn't been alone in making that determination. Captain Upland had been the one to push for it. There were also no planets with stargates on their way back to the Colonies and none that the Earthers knew of nearby. They may not like being forced to return to the Colonies but Commander Adama was not going to make a bad situation worse… not that it could be any worse than it was right now…

Spread out on her desk and under her laptop were half a dozen comp sheets of various sizes and a PDA and a military-authorized holoband visor. She had all the video recorded from the interrogations and had been watching them with her colleagues on the other ships in the group via h-band conference. She picked up the visor, debating whether to put it on and watch more video. They had translating software now which dubbed in their language.

Out of all of them Teal'c tended to say the least. Major Carter spoke the most about theories and technologies way above Upland's level of expertise and O'Neill seemed to just sit there and listen. Daniel had read the Sacred Scrolls, stopping at points to read little tidbits to the others.

SG8 tended to play the dozen or so different versions of Triad after a few of the Marines had shown them how to play last week. They tended to trade war stories and talk about fraking… or fucking or boning. There was a little awkwardness having their CO with them. No one had been sure if the Earthers should be separated based on rank or based on their team. In the end the Marine contingent CO had decided to separate them based on team, since Teal'c and Daniel held no official rank.

A few Marines occasionally went into the SG8 quarters to play Triad with them. And until Condition Two had been called, had snuck in a few bottles of liquor… it seemed Marines, even separated by light years, tended to all get along. But now with Condition Two the consumption of alcohol was not permitted.

One of the comp sheets had a displayed list of everything Doctor Baltar and Major Amorak had found on the _tel'tak_ to date. The most important and startling realization and observation had been the ring capability. Major Carter had told them about it last week and two days ago Doctor Baltar had activated them. There was debate amongst the personnel assigned to study the ship whether to remove the rings for independent study or leave them be.

Upland had seen some personal ambition beginning to crop up in the twenty-seven people who were authorized to study the _tel'tak _and little bits of healthy and unhealthy competition were beginning to take shape. Doctor Baltar was antagonizing some of the team members, notably the engineers, who he equated as glorified plumbers and electricians and disdainfully dismissing the training needed to properly run and maintain an FTL plant. He also didn't seem to have any kind words for anybody.

When it came down to the legalities and ownership of the _tel'tak _it belonged to the Fleet as did everything gleamed for it. That didn't mean the Fleet wouldn't be contracting out to private firms and letting them take liscences on the technology. Baltar needed to get it through his head that this was Fleet property and that bigger things, like life and death, hung in the balance than whether or not he'd make _Science and Technology Quarterly Review_ or win a Magnate Prize.

In part she trusted Amorak far more as a fellow Fleet officer than Baltar but she also distrusted them both and questioned if they had ulterior motives. The Amoraks weren't known to be particularly caring about who they destroyed in their business and believed in a 'total war' approach to just about everything. It was hard to gauge in the daughter would emulate the father, the current patriarch of the immediate and extended family.

Turning away from the subject of the Amorak clan, since she was currently annoyed with one who was late to a meeting, Upland was distracting herself by pecking through the list of current file transfers and data lines being opened and closed on the battlestar group's network and displayed on her tablet. At any one moment there were thousands of small messages, nothing larger than a hiccup, being sent to or from _Valkyrie_ via the laser comm. clusters spreads throughout the hull. Capable of secure point-to-point communication the clusters were a tired and tested technology perfected during the FCC and Cylon War to allow coordination of battle fleets numbering the hundreds to effectively fight the Cylons if wireless was jammed or compromised.

The Cylon War had led to the temporary yanking of almost all the battle networks in the fleets of the Twelve Colonies. All the warships, even the neutral powers, had designed systems to be compatible with their robotic soldiers. When the Cylons and Spartoi rebelled they basically had the keys to the battle computers.

Years ago the battle networks carried everything from positional data, firing solutions, and DRADIS data and were part of complex battle plans to out maneuver and out jump an opponent. While wireless was faster battles tended to never occur at distances which never made light speed lag an issue. Wireless could also be jammed. Lasers were secure unless something came between the transmitting and receiving clusters.

The Colonial fleet policy had always been one of extreme aggression which necessitated complex and redundant battle networks for the complex coordination required for FTL jump tactics and FTL jump-based warfare. An opponent could fire missiles from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. Even with missiles which could break through the extensive jamming on the modern space battlefield firing from such distances was next to useless; ships kept their FTL spooled and could jump. Missiles with maneuvering thrusters would never have the fuel required for powered burns and maneuvering if warships were continually jumping. FTL engines on missiles were impractical, too expensive- half the cost of a Raptor was the FTL engine- and tossing in an FTL computer would shoot the price of an anti-ship missile through the roof. It was cheaper to just jump in Raptors with nukes or light anti-ship missiles.

At the ranges Colonial ships would engage at, maybe ten k-klicks all the way down to a mere ten klicks, communications lasers were instantaneous. A battlestar was filled with recessed transmission and receiving clusters which dotted the hull so it could keep in contact with a large number of warships in its order of battle.

Normally the networks carried data on the status of a battlestar or escort. It was fairly mundane and boring ninety-nine point nine nine percent of the time. Virtual meetings, training exercises, and basic information exchange was the majority of everyday traffic.

But it was lunch. Chow time. Break time. Right now there were people engaged in small V-world simulations, or chatting with each other. Interactive movies were gaining in popularity in the Colonuies, with large H-band cafes for people to meet, plug in, and pretend they were all participating in some massive fantasy world. Band addiction was a new old worry in the Colonies and the Fleet took it seriously. Its h-bands were designed with special hardware blocks to prevent addiction- which made them incredibly costly compared to their civilian off-the-shelf companions.

But like any warships, or any ship or planet or city in the modern age the data links carried porn. Lifetimes of porn… regulations governed the transfers and all porn, from V-World interactive programs to movies was technically '…not permitted to be broadcasted from personal workstations or holoband directories over official ship-to-ship data links…'. Sailors did it anyway and the secware, node barriers, and AD algorithms continually checked for virware, bware, and protected against viruses.

And unofficially the Fleet preferred if its sailors engaged in simulated sex rather than real sex which could lead to a whole host of problem not conducive to life on a tin can warship in the void of space.

The Fleet Intelligence Directorate department on the battlestar was one of two departments- the other being the network security department- within the group who had full authority to view all the activity occurring on any non-classified computer system on the network. To keep out the Cylons weapons, navigation, engineering, and everything else were closed networks and designed to operate in tandem or separately. Wireless, which the Cylons had used to hack into Colonial computers, was secured behind some of the most sophisticated firewalls Colonial scientists had developed and the wireless comm. system was redundant with the laser comm. and both could operate independently of the other.

FID and network security only breached the privacy filters of Colonial sailors and Marines if something malicious or suspicious was suspected. But each intrusion meant paperwork needed to be filed and official justifications made. Depending on the FID CO for the fleet and the bureaucratic underlings currently overseeing this battlestar group the paperwork would either be rubber stamped or be sent to various ethics committees for reviews. Upland had done her own investigations as a junior FID agent a few years ago and knew the bureaucratic nightmare which went along with each intrusion.

The FID did like to have fun with it, though. On _Valkyrie_ FID had a pool going with _Gorgon, Pan, Attia, _and _Chios_ FID divisions on the day The Porn would reach its zenith. _Valkyrie_'s FID had bet on the most porn and V-sex being downloaded and engaged in around day number eighty, about half-way through the official deployment. _Gorgon_ had bet a month on the assumption people would get lonely quickly (and lost), _Attia_ and _Chios_ both five weeks and six weeks (and lost) and _Pan_ had bet at day ninety the battlestar group would see the most porn and V-sex traffic on its networks.

Network security usually partook in the unofficial wager as well.

Captain Upland sat back, listening to her chair squeak, then let it push her forward as she tapped a blinking green button on her phone. "Yes?"

"_Major Amorak to see you, sir,"_ her aide, a senior petty officer, reported flatly.

With a balled fist and index finger sticking out the FID officer pushed back the sleeve covering her left arm and glanced down at her watch; _1209_. "Only about forty minutes late," she muttered with a clenched jaw. Putting on a fake smile, getting in the mood she pressed down on the PTT button. "I'll be right there, Chief."

She coughed to clear her throat, rubbed the back of her neck as she stood, and pulled down on her tunic. A quick visual inspection of her uniform and with two-fingers clasped her intelligence certification pin just to be sure it was level over her left breast pocket and with a nod to herself she sidestepped from behind her L-shaped desk and opened the hatch to her small office.

'Spook country' as the crew called the intelligence compartments aboard battlestars was generally a small suite of half a dozen offices of various sizes, a few storage areas (believed by the crew to be interrogation cells, by the media to be archaic dungeons where FID tortures people), and a small, secure room with various pieces of classified intelligence. It was located in the main hull, back from the 'arrow head' of the battlestar, starboard by two compartments and ventral from the center of the ship by a deck.

There were four other officers under her command on _Valkyrie_, two chiefs, and six senior petty officers and she had authority over the other FID personnel on the other ships. She and the others on the battlestar were a fairly tight group, each highly educated and trained. There weren't the normal divisions one would see between officer and enlisted or pilot and knuckle dragger. The only other department on the battlestar similar was perhaps engineering with the snipes where the officers and enlisted got just as dirty and grimy working in the power plant and FTL core.

Opening the hatch and stepping out the warm aroma of tea filled her nostrils and she greeted one of her petty officers. "David," she said with a tilt of the head. "They ready?"

David Kal looked up from a small metal desk cluttered on each end with a laptop and tablet and in the center with comp sheets. "Yes, sir, they're right over there." He pointed to the corner towards a plastic black box with a glowing dark blue keypad illuminating nine digits and six letters.

Melicia Upland maneuvered through the cluttered deck space until she reached the outer compartment where Jessica Amorak was waiting. "Sir, I apologize for keeping you waiting." If the scientist caught the hardness in Upland's tone or the double-meaning it was lost of her, who was consumed with a small PDA. The captain stood there a moment, staring at the top of the major's head. "Major?"

"Sorry, captain, one moment." She held up a finger and plugged away with the stylus, not bothering to make eye contact. After a series of taps and what looked like- to Upland- scribbling, but were in fact equations and observations, she jammed the stylus back in a small hole on the side of the device and slid in back into her pocket. "So are they ready? This is important."

"They were ready this _morning_. I believe a message was sent, sir?" Upland looked at the Chief, who was sorting a few papers rather loudly, and mentally rolling her eyes stepped to the side and motioned back to the inner offices. "After you, sir." She followed behind Amorak and shot her chief the evil eye at his silent snigger and his failed attempt to keep a straight face.

Amorak went straight back to Upland's office and took a seat while she grabbed the container, hauling it back to her officer and letting it slap gently on her leg as she walked. In her office she pressed the red button on the side of the hatch, which slid shut, and set the case down on the ground at the edge of her desk. Upland gently pushed back the computer on the ledge of her desk and then took her seat and crossed her legs under the desk, staring for a moment at the scientist.

Melicia Upland knew that Jessica Amorak was a woman who got what she wanted. She was here for CORA but one of a dozen others could have come. A successful field test- now seemingly impossible- would have catapulted her career forward. Who pulled the strings to get her assigned to the expedition?

Her young age for a major rubbed some as nepotism; Fleet R&D was not known to promote quickly and the famous family name was whispered by her intellectual and professional opponents as the only reason she received favorable postings and funding.

Her posture and body language was cool and detached, like someone who'd come inside your home and talk to you while wearing sunglasses. Someone who seemed not to care what others thought so long as she maintained an advantage. In Amorak's case her superficial advantages were a brilliant mind, beauty, and family wealth. Despite her ability to mix and mingle with the crew Upland could sense a strong ego under there but one which had been battered a bit over the last week as the secrets of the Goa'uld technology within the _tel'tak_ continued to elude her and Doctor Baltar.

"I did lodge a small disagreement with Commander Adama over this, sir," Upland began, "but I recognize why you're doing this. But-"

"But you…" Amorak leaned forward slightly, "don't trust them? I think the situation's changed."

"I'm not disputing the situation, major." Upland answered immediately. "We're all way outside our authority here. I explained that to Commander Adama and I requested a meeting with you to explain it to you as well." With her right hand Upland tightly squeezed her left, obscured under the desk. For an egg head the major was easier to get along with than Baltar but she, like he, had the impressively annoying ability to throw their intellectual weight around when it came to science, an 'I know what I'm doing, shut up and follow' sort of personality. The Amorak family name certainly didn't help in the humility department in Upland's eyes and despite Jessica Amorak's outward personality as 'just a Fleet officer' Upland sensed an ego under the outer shell. "There are protocols for this-"

"For making contact with long lost tribes and aliens?" Amorak snorted, tossing in a mocking grin. She wasn't in the mood to be lectured by an FID officer, a captain, and someone who probably had a lower security clearance than she did. Part of her kept telling her to just shut up and listen but she was almost on autopilot. The last two days had been a whirlwind of little to no sleep, skipped meals, a computer overloaded from improper syncing with the _tel'tak_, and a litany of other problems had run her patience to empty. "The 'protocols' were written centuries ago by admirals wanting to cover their ass. They're a whole five hundred words long, barely a page. The conventions theorizing about intelligent life were dismissed as gathers of cooks and crazies, especially after Crotni." She gestured around the room, crossing her legs and relaxing her posture. "All this classified stuff? I know the protocols for these sorts of projects, captain. My security clearance is high, higher than yours."

"Yes, sir, of course." Upland swallowed. "This is also my job; detailing the procedure in revealing classified information such as our military FTL core arrays, computers, and guidance systems for our missiles. Which, if I am not mistaken both you and Doctor Baltar contributed to." She paused. "The guidance systems."

Amorak glowered. "We still need to _offer _them the deal, so you might be getting a little ahead of yourself. And I hope to use Goa'uld technology to improve our pen aides and guidance systems. Their stuff is so ahead of ours it's not funny, captain, so we need all the help we can get. And so what if they see our technology? If we can unlock the Goa'uld tech it'll make our current weapons look like flintlocks."

"I understand. But again, we don't know anything about the Thirteenth Tribe, how they've developed on Earth, or their culture. It's been over four thousand years," Upland pointed out. "It's my job to analyze and some of what Doctor Jackson has said about Earth and humanity could be, uh… upsetting, slightly…"

"_Life here began out there_, every school child knows that. We may have come from Earth to Kobol and then back again. How could we even know the _name_ of the planet without some sort of common history?"

"That's true. We've been looking at the possibilities. We have a few theories. Maybe there was a Stargate on Kobol."

"The _Scrolls_ have some interesting passages, captain. The _Book of Innocents-_"

Upland kept herself from frowning. Her lip smiled formed a condescending dimple on her right cheek. "I know what the _Sacred Scrolls_ say but…" she made a slight noise, inaudible to Amorak, and closed her mouth to keep herself from saying anything more. After a breath and the major sitting there and not saying anything she resume the 'conversation' she wished over. "It's a fantastic assumption to assume that an _entire galaxy_ of thousands of worlds could be populated from a relative handful of humans removed from a single planet ten thousand years ago. From a society of hunter gatherers. But we've been running simulations with what little information we have and what Doctor Jackson provided. Small seed populations of five to ten thousand every few years from around their planet… then take humans from those seed populations and the possible uses of fertility drugs and long life spans for the Jaffa, with each having what… maybe six, seven, eight children?"

"If the Jaffa are the elite soldiers and the Goa'uld use human slaves, maybe more," Amorak said, thinking out loud. "Using some sort of fertility technology isn't really out of the question. With the right drugs we can take one embryo and get twins, triplets, whatever. Do that for a few pregnancies…" Her fingers rapped on her knees as her eyes narrowed down to slits as she thought. The major had been so busy she'd never really sat down too long… this was probably the first time in days she didn't have a PDA, comp sheet, or a tablet resting on her lap with her fingers racing across the keys or a stylus in hand drawing out equations and scribbling notes. "I'm sorry, I haven't been able to sit down and run any calculations or whatever… more important things and all."

"Now, Earth has a little over six billion," Upland nodded, "A little more than Caprica. But ten thousand years ago it would have number less than five million." She folded her arms on her desk and studied a powered down computer sheet with a little too much effort. In the silence as Amorak sat there and Upland ran over the conclusions of her department again she could hear the hum of the engines and felt the cool air rushing through the atmospheric vents on the left bulkhead, flush with the deck. Melicia hummed a silent note to herself and itched the tip of her nose with a quick flick of her finger. "Numbers don't lie. History doesn't lie. We have records of being on Kobol dating back thousands of years before Ra would have even discovered Earth, and our society has no reference to the language the Goa'uld used. Ra-"

Amorak interrupted the captain, earning a glare from a woman who hated being interrupted. "Ra was probably being deceived by his lieutenants- if the Stargate was covered and buried then other Goa'uld went back to Earth to take people. Maybe in secret?" Jessica rubbed her forehead. "I don't know. Our civilization predates their Greek one. But we're not going to get to the answers right now, are we?"

"We're not going to get the answers right now, sir."

"Agreed." Amorak nodded definitively.

"I also need to speak with you about CORA, which is one other purpose of this meeting, sir."

"May I ask why?"

"Certainly, sir." Captain Upland pulled up a comp sheet from under her laptop, thumbed it on and handed it to Major Amorak. "The latest version of CORA cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of anyone, including Goa'uld. While this mission cannot be deemed a total failure, we have, quite frankly, failed to achieve our objective of capturing a modern Cylon and testing CORA on its meta-cognitive processor. The Cylons you already tested it on-"

"Were old models, yes," Amorak finished hurriedly. "It performed well. But I agree with you. CORA cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the Goa'uld should they manage to intercept this battlestar group. The safety of that program is our highest priority."

Melicia opened a drawer, placing a file folder on the desk, and took out an actual piece of paper. The Colonial Seal was stamped under the blocky words in a monochrome gray, contrasting with the black writing. "I agree. I maintain the authority to destroy the program but I would like your endorsement…" she slid the sheet over, "for…"

"To cover your ass?" Amorak smiled and took a pen, without asking, from a holder on the edge of Upland's desk. "No, sorry, I understand why you would want me to sign this. The hardware isn't cheap. But it's software, so we can just copy it again." Major Amorak read the form quickly and signed in graceful, wide-strokes and underlined her name to add a little personal stylized form to the black ink signature. "Real paper… nothing like it…" she put the pen down after capping it and slid the file back.

Captain Upland put an index and middle finger on the paper and slid it back, delicately placing it into the manila folder and putting it in her drawer, locking it.

"Thank you sir… but we also have a meeting with the command staff. Commander Adama will most likely authorize your request." She stood up, Amorak following, and led the way, picking up the plastic box.

"The translators?"

Upland nodded and opened the box. Inside were small sets of modified wireless hands-free devices. They were a little clunky but came in sets of two; an ear piece and a small microphone with a clip to attach to the lapel.

"I guess now is the best time to test them."

* * *

Commander Adama eyed the full glass of water a couple of centimeters in front of his tablet computer as it sweated onto the table. At a U-shaped conference table, optimized for briefings, on his right and immediate left sat his staff. Filling out the rest of the space at the conference table, on the left with Marines behind them, was SG1.

SG1 had been the only team invited to the conference. SG8 would be called on later but SG1 were the experts; the brilliant scientist, the brilliant anthropologist and archeologist and linguist, the former First Prime of a major System Lord, and Colonel O'Neill. Commander Adama had met privately with O'Neill, Doctor Jackson accompanying of course, two days ago. The commander liked the man and had come to the conclusion the sarcastic, care-free attitude was a cover for a man as sharp and professional as the best could be.

Adama had seen that in more than a few special operations soldiers; relaxed, laid back attitudes which could be clicked on or off depending on the circumstances. The attitude was just a cover. The eyes told him everything. There was a hidden coldness to those eyes which he saw every morning in the mirror.

Colonel O'Neill was sitting closest to the Colonial officers and currently fiddling with his translator device.

O'Neill was slightly fidgety with his uniform in addition to the two-piece translator. The BDUs of the Earthers had been taken for cleaning that morning and they all wore one of the shipboard Marine BDU variants; a black and gray digital camouflage pattern. It was also used on-world just because Cylons could see in any EM spectrum so the only uniforms that mattered were those that reduced an IR signature. Their BDUs could be bright pink with neon green and it wouldn't matter fighting the Cylons.

"We have two choices," Commander Adama said, eying the glass of water a few centimeters from his tablet computer, the glass still full, "in dealing with this threat. The first is we attempt to jump back to the Colonies and hope they don't follow. The second is that we jump to a nearby system of our choosing and that we fight."

Colonel Tigh, seated to Adama's left nodded at the second option. Majow Andrew Usher, the CO of the Marine detachment followed with Lt. Colonel Yannis, the BSG CAG. Agreeing with the other two. Major Amorak flashed a second-long look of concern and Captain Upland, sitting at the far end of the U-table, held onto an expressionless face with dispassionate eyes looking back towards the commanders.

Doctor Baltar, between Upland and Yannis frowned at the little computer he was fiddling at, not paying attention. Or at least, pretending not to.

Commander Allison Vasic, on Adama's immediate right, spoke up after taking a sip from her glass.

"Sir," Vasic said with a nod, "we should fight. We can't let the Goa'uld discover the location of the Colonies." She looked at the Earthers. "If we could have help from the Thirteenth… all the intelligence possible on weakness, on how to fight the Goa'uld… more than what we've had, that would increase our chances significantly."

Like everyone else there she was trained to be aggressive. She'd known Commander Adama long enough that even with the neutral tone and his hands placed on the table unmoving, the same quiet tone on both choices, that he wanted to stay and fight the Goa'uld. When she'd served under him he'd go right into the thick of battle, often pulling some incredible stunt. On _Olympus_ he'd proved his skills early on when he'd taken the ship and ambushed an entire convoy during war games, taking out six troop ships, a tyllium tanker, an assaultstar and an attackstar before jumping away after luring two battlestars away to chase him behind one of Ragnar's moons.

It was that type of aggression the Fleet taught and the type Allison admired. She'd support any decision Commander Adama made.

"That would be helpful, very helpful," Major Amorak agreed, "We just don't have the resources to start understanding Goa'uld technology let alone finding flaws we can militarily exploit. It could take years."

"I doubt that," Doctor Baltar responded, a hand covering his mouth and muffling his hand. "From what I understand…" he let his hand fall and sat up slightly, "you all have been using the Stargate for years… your weapons and technology do not seem to have benefited."

O'Neill put his elbow on the table and looked over at Major Carter, giving her silent permission to rip into Doctor Baltar even though he knew she'd maintain her tact and be diplomatic.

Major Carter looked Baltar in the eye. "With due respect to your advances, we've made our own. We've made significant discoveries on our own and with the help of our allies. Part of the benefits of our Stargate Program is that there is a lot of technology out there, technology we can find and salvage or technology traded to us for anything from humanitarian relief supplies to simple intelligence."

"Obviously we're not in need of humanitarian supplies, Major," Adama answered her. "We require intelligence… if we stop to fight, you and SG8 will be with us as well. It would be in our mutual best interest to aide one another."

O'Neill put a gentle hand on Daniel's forearm to stop him from potentially pontificating about morality at this point. The Colonel needed to hear more. He felt it, in his bones maybe, that the Colonials were closer to making a deal rather than just demanding SG1 and SG8 give up all their secrets.

"So… right now we need each other?" O'Neill repeated, "so I think that would make us partners? We've already been gone from Earth for some time, our boss is going to get worried. Why don't we start by you telling us where we are?"

Colonel Tigh's left lip curled up. "And break OpSec?"

"No, it's alright Colonel," Adama quietly countered. "Captain Upland, can you display for us a star chart of our current position and our previous course."

"Yes, sir."

The screen in the front lit up in a rich hue of color before quickly resolving into a map of local space. It zoomed out but Upland kept the icon for the Colonies off. After a moment she split the screen for a wide view of the galaxy and a more compressed, rotating view of local space to present a pseudo-3D image.

"Carter?"

She shook her head. "There's no Stargates in this region of space. We're moving closer to the rim and higher on the Y-axis… closer to what you could call the 'edge' of the galaxy, sir."

"We believed the galaxy to be fairly barren," Tigh scoffed, "but obviously…" he grumbled and didn't finish the sentence, looking at Adama, perturbed.

"Because of the Stargates, Goa'uld territory is fragmented," Teal'c stated, "this region of space I am unfamiliar with. I know it only by reputation; the Tanshaw Traverse, a region of space forbidden for Goa'uld and their Jaffa armies to enter."

"…why was that, Teal'c?" O'Neill asked after a brief pause.

"Many millennia ago they suffered great defeats in this region. Ra declared it off limits. There were rumors the inhabitants of this region once possessed ships of great strength, with armies of tireless and powerful warriors."

Colonel O'Neill leaned a little closer to his friend. "That would have been good to know earlier." Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

"I did state earlier than Goa'uld do not come to the region the planet was in. This region has passed into legend; few would travel here because there are no habitable worlds."

"And no Stargates," Carter finished. Teal'c nodded once.

Jack looked to the Colonials, smiling. "So… I think we can probably assume Sokar won't be sending in other ships-"

"If you're wrong?" Adama asked.

Jack shrugged. "It's a risk."

"If Sokar loses ships," Teal'c said, "then it is likely he will not send in more. He is planning a major offensive against the other System Lords. He will also be forced to defend himself from other Goa'uld who will see an opportunity to strike while his battle fleets are engaged elsewhere in the galaxy."

Daniel had been listening quietly, one finger pressed under his jawbone he used a free hand to push up his glasses. "So do you want weapons technology or…?"

"Weapons would be preferable," Tigh answered.

Commander Adama looked coolly at the Earther, his eyes appearing tired. "Colonel Tigh is correct, Doctor Jackson. Weapons. But we use missiles and kinetic rounds. We could never modify or build the necessary components for energy weapons. Major Amorak and Doctor Baltar are two experts on our weapons technology." He nodded for the two scientists to finish the briefing.

Major Carter jumped in, motioning to Amorak and Baltar to let her speak. "We'd need total access to your weapons technology. Even then our knowledge of the Goa'uld is still limited. Their technology is just so far ahead of ours."

"And ours, Commander," Amorak confirmed. "Their crystalline-based computing is something completely out of our current capabilities, sir, just as an example. What we should focus on is electronic warfare and maximize our ability to confused their DRADIS, or sensors- whatever, to increase our hit-miss-interception ratios for missiles."

"If you need access," Adama stated, "you will have access." He was pleased Captain Upland issued no protest. Adama knew she wouldn't, not publicly, not here. "I will also inform you I am allowing you to see classified and top secrets components and programming code. You can use our electronic devices to aide you. Whatever information you discover pertaining to weaknesses in Goa'uld technology from analyzing the shuttle will be yours."

"Jack," Daniel leaned in, "I'm still not comfortable with this."

"Daniel… this may not be the place."

"Um…" Daniel raised his voice, "What will you do if you use whatever we help you with, help you develop? If you get new weapons…?" His eyebrows rose.

Commander Vasic glanced to her left to Adama and to her right at Baltar, Amorak, and Upland. She scooted her right side forward, facing the Earthers. "We'll use them to defend ourselves."

Major Usher, the Marine who'd led the ground force to rescue them, agreed and expanded on what Commander Vasic had said. "The energy weapons we salvaged will revolutionize our capabilities to fight our enemy, the Cylons, Doctor. A significant portion of our military is dedicated to patrolling the Armistice Line and our other borders for Cylon aggression."

"But are these for defensive purposes or do you plan on using them offensively?" Daniel asked. "I've read your history, and while Earth is hardly an example of a peaceful planet, the scales of wars the Colonies have conducted are simply stunning by our standards. The largest war we fought in modern times ended with sixty million deaths. You said seven billion died in your Cylon War. That can create a lot of…" he paused to choose his words carefully, "animosity towards an enemy."

Commander Adama could feel the tension thicken as Tigh sat straighter, Usher clenched a fist, and even a scent of indignation from Vasic as her eyes narrowed to bands and nostrils flared. A quick look to the side prevented the SG1 team from seeing. "There are a lot of mixed feelings in the Colonies at the moment, Doctor Jackson. Like you we are a democracy at the federal level and there are numerous political parties and opinions. There have been attempts to pass resolutions expressing our regret over building the Cylons and Spartoi and there have been resolutions introduced to launch a second war. As a diverse culture we have diverse opinions on many… _delicate_ subjects, Doctor…" he looked over to Upland. "Captain Upland can provide you with additional literature on the Cylon War."

"Yes, sir." Upland made a note on a small note c-sheet.

Daniel, realizing the tenderness of the situation, moved on from a possible inflammatory topic of war guilt, nationalism, hatred or whatever else could describe the Colonial attitude towards Cylons. "I assume these Cylons you were so concerned about are at the same technological level, give or take?"

"Cylons are far ahead of us in computer-related technologies," Amorak said, "or so we assume. But… I am confused, Doctor Jackson. What other purpose is there for a weapon, but not to use it offensively, as an extension of state policy? Honestly… many believe the Cylons are preparing for a war with us. An armistice ended the War, not a peace treaty. The Cylons have yet to show themselves at the yearly conferences mandated by the Armistice… that's a concern. Their inability to abide by our armistice leads many to believe a sneak attack may occur."

"Pre-emptive war," Carter noted, a slight mix of tone conveyed both a question and accusation.

Commander Adama bowed his head. "If we begin advancing our technology in leaps and bounds the Cylons…" he swallowed, unsure if he wanted to make the statement, but if he didn't he knew someone else would, "would undoubtedly attack us."

"We've been unified for almost half a century," Vasic added, "the only enemies to use such weapons on would be external."

"Well… I think I can tell you; one planet we know of, the Tollans, gave an energy technology to their neighboring planet, which was less advanced, significantly so. The Tollans used this energy source for peace, producing near limitless energy." He saw the eyebrows of almost everyone quickly rise. Amorak and Baltar both leaned forward. Daniel saw Upland shared the excitement of the scientists. "Whatever it was, they didn't tell us… sorry." He shrugged. "Their neighbors, the Sarita, used this energy technology and within one day, a mere day, wiped themselves out. Since then, for centuries, the Tollan have never traded technology. Another race, the Nox, highly advanced, believed trading their technology for the purposes of making war and killing to be immoral and will not kill, even in their own defense. The Tollan don't trade to races they believe to be less advanced culturally…"

Amorak leaned back, holding up her right hand, palm out like a 'stop' sign. "Wait…" she was shaking her head, "in one day the planet, Sarita you said, destroyed itself? That doesn't sound like a weaponization. It sounds like whatever this was was some volatile substance or had some complex technique and I don't know… containment was breached."

Upland agreed with the woman sitting next to her, who had sat back and was studying her hands. Amorak was trying to run through any possible scenario to explain something like this. The FID captain had seen the technology of the _tel'tak_. Some sort of super energy source would be more revolutionary than that Goa'uld shuttle. It was a pity the Tollan no longer traded.

"How could those Tollan give such a resource to a people- a resource they knew had potential to be such a powerful weapon- who, within _one day_ used it to annihilate themselves?" Melicia Upland wondered aloud, her smooth voice breaking a moment's silence. "If Sarita annihilated itself in one day then that would imply a significantly hostile geopolitical situation on the planet between various nation-states. How could the Tollan be so foolish, ignorant, to give such a thing to those people? Were they ignorant of this energy source's ability to destroy? That is incredibly reckless to give them a device which can be weaponized so easily… assuming it did not lose containment or something similar."

"The Tollan were peaceful explorers," Carter jumped in to their defense. Her fond memories of Narrim and the time on Tollana were still fresh and vivid. The emotion-sharing device Narrim had let her use on their first encounter in the SGC was still a powerful influence whenever she saw him.

"In their defense," Daniel said, "they didn't go into much detail. It could be the guilt and the realization they were ignorant of the culture of other planets that they decided to wait until a culture was advanced enough…"

"I agree with Jessica," Baltar said quietly, perking up and leaning forward, his chest poised over the table and his small tablet. He was flicking the stylus between his middle and index finger until he cupped it and clenched a fist around it. "There would have to have been extenuating circumstances. Unless, as Captain Upland said, the Tollans were just so ignorant of the geopolitical situation on Sarita, it would have had to have been a containment breach or negligence of some kind."

"Advanced enough?" Adama asked. He silently agreed, in part with Amorak and Upland and Baltar. He'd been involved in weapons development, testing specifically, and it did sound reckless of the Tollan to give such easily convertible technology to a planet and not realize it.

Daniel let off a throaty 'mmhmm.' "Advanced enough where we don't make war on each other. Omoc, the leader of the Tollans we first made contact with, made an observation about nuclear weapons, which he claimed the Tollans had never built, because they were designed only for offensive war. He said we would wipe ourselves out if we did not learn quickly."

"Have you used nuclear weapons?" Commander Vasic asked.

"We have," O'Neill confirmed immediately.

"Twice." Daniel held up his middle and index finger. "And then and now there is still debate over their use and the mass death and horrors they've caused after their deployment."

O'Neill motioned for Daniel to lay off and let him take it. "And we did use them two other times as weapons of last resort, after much debate. We've conducted thousands of tests. But only twice on Earth, to end World War Two."

Daniel observed the reactions of the Colonials and their reactions. There was confusion and disbelief. They were mumbling to themselves, too low for the translators to pick up. Colonel Tigh and Yannis were both shaking their heads, the CAG motioning to the SG team. His body language showed he clearly didn't believe them.

"Your people have only used nuclear weapons twice…?" Yannis asked with a fake smile bordering on the disbelieving. Daniel nodded. "We've used nuclear weapons for centuries. But to the point of wiping each other out is madness… nuclear warfare is an integral part of our doctrine, Doctor. And who determines what 'culture' is more 'advanced'… what does that even mean, Doctor?"

"Integral, you say?" O'Neill raised an eyebrow. Yannis looked slowly towards him, nodding curtly.

"We're only one planet," Daniel elaborated, "and the main super powers created enough nuclear weapons to kill us all. But a policy, called Mutually Assured Destruction kept each super power from firing their nukes. Each had enough for a second strike that if one fired first, the second could retaliate. Both would be destroyed."

"The Nox…" Amorak asked, to steer the conversation back to technology, "are advanced, like the Goa'uld?"

"More so," Daniel answered, "but they are absolute pacifists. They won't resort to violence, even to defend themselves."

O'Neill inwardly rolled his eyes. He wanted to speak up but the Colonial Marine, Usher, whom O'Neill didn't really like all that much, scoffed.

"They won't defend themselves… that makes… what?" He was genuinely confused. "That makes no sense."

"The Tollan and Nox believe offensive war to be immoral. The Tollan defend themselves and will use force and violence, but never offensively. The Nox used their advanced technology to fool others and deceive them so they never have to resort to violence," Daniel explained.

"Technology to defeat the Goa'uld?"

"This isn't a good topic to be on… it's pretty involved, complicated… lots of history," O'Neill advised.

Usher had a loose fist under his chest which he let fall to the table and then lifted his palm, keeping his forearm on the table. "That sounds sanctimonious… someone with the-"

Baltar chuckled, getting the attention of everyone in the room. "In this story, wouldn't we be the Tollans, Doctor? Are you implying we are not an advanced enough culture to be trusted to Goa'uld weapons? Is your culture?" Major Amorak was about to hit him under the table but he moved to the side, away from her reach to where it wouldn't be subtle and held up a finger. "Your equipment belongs in a museum. Has Earth even developed AI technology? How many space ships have you built? What resources could you bring to any sort of agreement… you're just _one_ planet. One _divided _planet."

"For the love of God," O'Neill whispered under his breath. Now the sixty-four thousand dollar question was the sudden change in Baltar's behavior from slightly antagonist, from O'Neill's point of view, to being a complete asshole.

"Doctor Baltar-"

The good doctor had the nerve to interrupt the Commander. "Sir, pardon me, but we've been treating them with hospitality for some time, like we owe them, like they are superior to us just because they've been traveling through their Stargate for a few years. They don't show gratitude for us rescuing them-"

"That's rich…" O'Neill shot back, "If I remember correctly we-"

Commander Adama hit some button, one no one even saw, and the translators shut off. Daniel couldn't understand what the Commander was saying; he was talking quickly, and in one of their other languages, but body language and tone was pretty telling. The Commander, despite not raising his voice, had made it clear for his civilian scientist to shut the, in the words of the Colonials, 'frak' up. That Daniel did get. Adama tapped the button a moment later, after Baltar broke eye contact with the Commander and resumed doing something with his little computer, flicking his gray stylus about without a care.

Major Amorak, her mouth slightly opened, was able to get Baltar's attention with a small nudge from her foot. What the frak was wrong with him? Did he see SG1 as a threat… if they helped would he have to share the 'glory'? The man she'd seen on Picket 715, on _Argus_, and on this battlestar before being shot down had been arrogant and egotistical, but he'd had charm. She knew he was smart enough to realize working with these Earthers would benefit them greatly. The number of gate addresses possible numbered in the billions and the Earthers had access to a significant number of useable addresses. Why would he want to alienate them? Maybe it was something else.

She slowly blinked in thoughtful disapproval at Baltar before turning back as Adama apologized, requesting she resume stating what the battlestars would need. "We've set up work stations with equipment and loaded translation software. It should work."

"If we're going to be on this ship if they get attacked… we should at least increase our chances, sir," Carter advised.

"I agree with Major Carter, Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c said.

O'Neill sucked in a deep breath in the too-cool conference room. "Fine. We'll help you. We'll look at your system and see if they can be modified… Major Carter can help you with that. I assume you'll be engaging them with those Vipers and Raptors? How are your ships armed?"

Colonel Yannis answered. "My Vipers and Raptors can be armed with conventional or Type Nine-Constellation anti-ship nuclear missiles. Vipers have hard points on the wings for missiles and internal bays for small AF/AM missiles. Vipers can accelerate faster than Raptors, both each has AG compensators for the same gee-stress. Standard battle procedure… between our ships we could launch…" he glanced to the Commander who didn't stop him, giving him permission, "a little over two hundred attack craft excluding that we keep a little over a third in reserve to plug holes or go after targets of opportunity..."

A survival instinct in a soldier was a precious commodity. Or anyone. It kept them from playing hero or doing something potentially 'stupid.' O'Neill's survival instinct had kicked in a while back but it was tempered by his profession and training into something which was much more accurately described as pragmatism. He offered up a little deal to the Colonials, hoping to get their trust and maybe some more gratitude.

"Teal'c and I can discuss in more detail the death gliders… the gees they can pull. We can go over the footage you have of them."

"We're also equipped with an extensive arsenal of nuclear weaponry," Colonel Tigh offered, despite reservations. He supported his CO and his CO supported the exchange of information. "Our stock include seventy Type Nine-Constellation nuclear missiles, each with one warhead and two breakaway decoys, thirty Mark Twelve-Delta anti-ship missiles we can launch from our turrets, each with six warheads and three decoys. The battlestars are also armed with _Stone Burner_ nuclear missiles; the highest acceleration of any nuclear missile we've built with multiple high yield independent target-seeking warheads and smart decoys. Our ships are also armed with kinetic canons and point defenses including anti-missile missiles and kinetic canons capable of firing a variety of shells."

"That sounds like an impressive armament," Teal'c complimented.

Tigh didn't seem particularly happy. "Major Amorak and Captain Upland can provide specifics about the missiles."

"Gladly, sir." Amorak beamed. "Our ships also have other electronic defenses, countermeasures, and spoofers to fool DRADIS."

"I have a few ideas I can go over with you," Carter directly towards her opposite. Amorak looked positively delighted to finally be able to work with her.

"And the elephant in the room…" O'Neill got blank stares back, "the issue in the room is still what you're going to do… still taking us back home?" Adama nodded. "Anyway to change that?"

"No. I apologize, Colonel O'Neill, for the inconvenience to you, your team, and SG8. I have an obligation to the Colonies I will not apologize for and their defense comes first. I would not doubt that you would put Earth's defense as your primary priority if our positions were reversed."

O'Neill did agree though. If he had five big honkin' space ships he'd be defending Earth first and making sure his people were safe. He still needed to show some reservation. "Great," he said, looking off to the star chart still on the screen.

"You'll still help?" Vasic asked.

"…yeah, we'll still help… we're in this together." O'Neill sounded reluctant but he knew if they were lucky they'd get a lot out of this. They'd never actually gotten to really study a _tel'tak_ before. With any luck Carter could figure stuff on the little Goa'uld shuttle and see some of the Colonial tech before and after the battle… and with that he was worried the Colonials were itching for a fight, to prove themselves to 'long lost brothers and sisters.'

"Once we deal with these ships chasing us, then we can determine what to do with you and your men. What we've discovered and learned here is that our galaxy is not the barren wastelands we once believed, Colonel. While not all of you have Kobolian ancestry, some of you do, which will make Earth a brother or sister to many on the Colonies. I am authorizing the sharing of classified information in good faith, Colonel. Once we return to the Colonies my report and recommendation will state that we return you and your men to Earth as soon as possible.

"If it were my decision to make, Colonel, the Colonies would be… formal friends of Earth or the United States." The others around the table nodded their heads, pursed their lips, and raised eyebrows in agreement with their CO. "We've been pushing our FTL to make red line jumps, but the Goa'uld are still following us, somehow. It is clear their DRADIS, their sensors, are superior. Whatever it is, Major Carter, Major Amorak, and… Doctor Baltar, you three… you have important tasks ahead. In addition to finding a way to more effectively fight the Goa'uld we must find out how they are tracking us. The rest of us as well… there are ten thousand sailors and Marines counting on everyone here. It is our duty. If you help us, Colonel O'Neill… while I do not speak for my government I can say with certainty that what you are doing for us will not be forgotten. We've entered into a galaxy we don't understand, that we didn't know existed. We're going to need help understanding, learning. There is nothing stronger than the relationships formed in battle. What has happened and what will happen shall shape the future of our worlds. I believe the fate of all our worlds, all thirteen, will be affected by our success or… our failure, for centuries. When we engage the Goa'uld we'll stand together as brothers and sisters. I have complete faith in everyone here. Dismissed."

* * *

AN: Apologies for the delay in posting a new chapter. This got a bit longer than I intended and I cut a few scenes, to toss in later (one with Kiva and Marteen). With Baltar's attitude I think it's best to look at him as sort of a spoiled kid who was privy to the best toys, only to realize that someone else has better toys. With naming planets in Cyrannus and Helios it's probably going to be Nordic naming for the most part, modifying the names a little. Lokasna's named was influenced by the poem Lokasenna.

When Bulldog mentioned Section Nine that was a shout out to _Ghost in the Shell_ and their Section Nine. With so many Cylons built before and during the war I figured there would be a lot of left overs from the war and that some people might think it's a "good idea" to sell or tinker with Cylon tech for their own nefarious purposes. There will be more S9 later.

Thank you to everyone who has been reviewing and reading the story. I've looked at the hits/visitors and it's getting a pretty dang good number, awesome.

I know as I change and modify Colonial technology it's going to be commented on. I feel that the changes being made to some things like wireless, computers, etc. will be better able to "fuse" the two universes together rather than the Colonies being completely oblivious, since both exist in the same universe there has to be similarities from my point of view.


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Chapter 10, please enjoy! I know the chapters have been long. I am trying to keep them short but I just like details- no budget, no 43 minute time limit and all that.

* * *

_**BS-41 Valkyrie**_

_**Deep Space**_

Colonel O'Neill looked up with a sneer and grimaced as what could only be described as 'goop' on his spoon slowly tricked back into the bowel. "I thought our food was bad… ick," he made a face and shoved the spoon into the creamy, purple-brown liquid slop. "I'd take a black bean burrito MRE over this."

Carter snorted, poking her nose forward to give it a sniff. "That bad?" She looked up and around the mess. "Seems pretty popular though."

Jack just groaned and pushed the bowl away with the tips of his finger, like it was infected with plague.

Daniel pointed at the mess in the bowl with a piece of bacon. "Well Jack, why'd ya choose that?" He took a nice bite and chewed slowly, taunting O'Neill and slapping his hand away when he reached for the last piece.

"Hey."

"Knew you'd do that."

Carter sighed in a motherly way, like she was watching children bicker. She just prayed a food fight didn't start. The last thing they needed was for the thirty or forty Colonial officers in the officer's mess thinking the Thirteenth Tribe's descendants were a bunch of children. Carter did lift a hand off the table to cover her mouth, looking back past the colonel, to laugh at the image of two grown men throwing food at each other.

Sighing from the endless cycles of work, tired and exhausted from nearly two weeks of twenty-hour days she bounced her hand out the table and snatched up some sort of morning breakfast pastry. It looked a bit like a strudel with a filling that tasted raspberry but wasn't quite raspberry. Taking a bite she caught sight of a young, fairly handsome ensign walking in with a group of half a dozen others, each with a copy of the Sacred Scrolls in their hand from morning prayers, and smiled at her. Jack caught her eyes and followed them back and behind him, giving the ensign a quick but detailed look and appraisal as he sat down with his buddies.

"What's that for?" The Colonel asked as he turned back around.

"Ensign Drazan? He's working with Jessica and I, modifying their penetration aides and jammers to work against Goa'uld shielding. He's pretty brilliant and kept up with us on the theories… helped Baltar reprogram the seeker codes…" she rolled her eyes at mention of the young, cocky doctor's name.

O'Neill gave Carter an air pat from across the table. "I feel sorry for you, Carter, working with that guy."

"I hope your endeavor proves most successful, Major Carter," Teal'c said as he popped a grape-looking piece of fruit into his mouth.

"Is everything good on that front, Sam?" Daniel asked. He leaned forward and reached across his mess tray to take a piece of Sam's not-strudel. "You don't mind…?" She looked exhausted at him and he shrugged, taking the second to last piece. "Thanks."

"We've modified a lot of their missiles, the nukes at least…" Carter leaned forward. "We modified the jammers and Captain Nikon is going to test a disarmed missile with the penetrators against the _tel'tak_ this afternoon."

"Tell them about the 301?" O'Neill inquired, raising his eyebrows and then steadying himself as he reluctantly prepared for another bite of his maybe-oatmeal slop. Braving the colors and the taste, hunger overwhelming him and with no desire to walk the twenty steps to the self-serve line, jammed the spoon in his mouth and shivered.

"I sort of did that, yes, sir."

"…Carter…"

She put her hands ups in her defense. "It was sort of hard not to talk about it when they asked why we had stuff that could penetrate Goa'uld shields. And it's not like we're sharing this stuff with the Russians, right?" She cocked a lopsided grin.

"Yeah…at least they're not _Russians_," O'Neill snarked. "How'd you modify them?"

The major shrugged and said simply, "We used magnets…" which earned her a exasperated look from the Colonel, a raised eyebrow from Teal'c, and a hand-over-mouth chuckle from Daniel. "We modified the emitters they use to jam DRADIS and wireless frequencies, which use a fairly low powered band of sub-space. Sub-space can be thought of as different levels… uh, sort of like a basement, sub basement, and all that sir, layered. Goa'uld technology relies on the more powerful sub-space bands but we can produce enough interference for a short amount of time that the missiles sort of create a nullifica…tion.…" she saw O'Neill's eyes glaze over. "If we time it right a missile can bypass the shield locally… we can adapt it onto the X-301."

O'Neill lifted a hand and gently slapped the table with an open palm. "See, that's all you had to say. We can bypass the shield… we can adapt it to the X-301."

"Well, sir, there's also some other nifty things I've been learning, too. The X-301 uses Goa'uld gravity engines which somehow take inertia out of the equation… sort of like an advanced inertial dampener-"

Daniel wagged the last piece of bacon. "Like on Star Trek, Jack."

"Exactly. Like on… Star Trek." Carter tried to hold off a sigh but failed at the last moment. "They use a system called an anti-gee compensator, and being able to understand that and being able to have a step-by-step lesson on how they build the AGC would help us understand the Goa'uld technology. The X-301 can definitely benefit. We're getting a lot more out of this, relatively. And being able to look at the _tel'tak_ just for these last few weeks has already solved a few problems we were having with the 301 and explains a few things. I've been able to optimize our computer interfaces with the Goa'uld crystal technologies and dig deeper into how their shipboard operating systems work… they almost like a dumb AI."

"That could be a problem with the Colonial kids," O'Neill said. "But as long as we learn as much as we can keep helping them, Carter."

"By providing them with weapons advancements," Daniel pointed out.

"Quid pro quo, Daniel," O'Neill answered. "And speaking of weapons… where are laser beams and ray guns, Carter?" He looked at her accusingly.

The major gave him a look while finishing her cup of coffee.

"Actually, sir, I asked the same question to Jessica." She stopped.

"And…"

"The hulls of their warships are coated with layers of metamaterials which make lasers ineffective so they only use them for communications and trying to blind optical systems." She explained. "They have experimented with plasma weaponry in the past but weren't able to solve the magnetic bottling problem." She saw the looks from her teammates and prayed she could keep their attention long enough to explain the dilemma. "To keep the plasma bolts from basically uh… falling apart they need to be wrapped in a magnetic bottle. It's like um…" she grabbed the water bottle Teal'c had been drinking from, "it's like a water bottle. Without the plastic forming this bottle the water just goes wherever. Think of the plastic keeping the water in as the magnetic bottle for plasma, keeping its 'form', I guess…" There were nods and Colonel O'Neill was paying attention… when it came to weapons. "She also said the plasma weapons were deemed too inefficient in both manpower to maintain, cost to build, and power requirements. They could build nukes and basically, she said, 'spam the frak' out of any enemy more efficiently. Their weapon's techs took the staff weapons apart already… I figure they're going to be pouring some massive R&D efforts into figuring them out."

"Speaking of which," Daniel started again, missing the eye roll from Jack, "are we potentially giving these people much stronger weapons? They basically admitted to using nukes fairly liberally, them being an integral part of their battle tactics. And it's not like they don't have other weapons which can blow up ships… we've only used nukes against ourselves twice and you all know how people on Earth feel…" he saw Jack looking back at him, sour. "And isn't it a bit worrying that they've used them against _each other_ so much?"

Sam shook her head. "Daniel, we're getting the better end of the deal." She lowered her voice. "They've got the resources to tear apart that _tel'tak_ once they get back to the Colonies. And these little translators…" she picked up her device from the table, which was currently off, "do pick up other things. Their military is huge… they've got a lot of ships like these. From what I've overheard they have dozens of these battlestar groups running around and a lot of them have been grumbling about running from a fight. Right now it's about saving lives; theirs and ours. If we sit back and do nothing then Commander Adama will still be forced to engage the _Ha'tak_s… especially since they're getting closer, even with their red line jumps. And there's only so much fuel until they have to go back to their space. He's made it clear he won't lead an enemy force back to the Colonies."

"Dozens?" O'Neill asked. He cocked his head and looked up at the deck head and began imagining… "Think of all the Goa'uld we could kill with dozens of these…" he sucked in a breath as his neck tensed. "Lots of dead snakes… lots and lots of the dead slimy things."

Teal'c stopped eating and nodded. "The Colonial military technologies and capabilities are impressive, Daniel Jackson. The engineering required to build a vessel of this size is significant. It would be prudent for Earth to pursue an alliance."

"Exactly." O'Neill emphatically agreed. "T and I also checked out their Marine's equipment when we gave them a briefing on Jaffa tactics. Liquid body armor, carbon composites… it's like a video game almost and this stuff could go a long way to saving the lives of our soldiers on Earth and out there," he waved towards the galaxy-at-large, "so we'll benefit."

Daniel grumbled. "It's like I'm starting to sound like a broken record-"

"I didn't say anything!" Jack raised his hands, twisting to face his friend. "You said it." He pointed an accusing finger at Daniel.

"-I just feel like I've been the bad guy here," he sighed, "but I'm just trying to say we should play it slow and cautious."

"We have been," O'Neill objected. "It does suck that we've been here almost a month. But what can we do about it?" To emphasize his point Jack sat up a little bit out of his seat and waved to one of the Marines who still followed them around. "We survive this and help them out, we get back to their Colonies, have a chit chat with their leaders and then get to go home. Easy as cake."

"I believe the expression is 'easy as pie', O'Neill." Teal'c said.

"I like cake."

The Jaffa nodded a concession.

Daniel rubbed the side of his temple. "I'm just hoping it works out. These people aren't your typical small, agrarian civilization, Jack."

"Yeah, I think we know, Daniel," Jack said, "and I'd be lying if I said I trusted them completely. Commander Adama seems like a good man but I know the type; devoted to his duty and loyal to his country. He's going to do what's best for the Colonies like we'd do what's best for Earth. And they haven't forced us to do anything against our will."

Carter's watch beeped and she cleaned her tray and tossed the napkin in the middle. "Sorry, but I'm meeting Jessica… we think we may have figured out how to stop the Goa'uld from tracking us."

* * *

_**BSG-41 Valkyrie**_

**Deep Space**

**A Few Days Later**

The hatch creaked and Antony Nikon twitched, wishing and praying he hadn't disturbed the beautiful young scientist who'd become a close friend and had the potential to be so much more. His lips moved in a silent curse when she looked up, but his face softened to a smile, returning hers.

"I knew you'd be here," Nikon said, a cup of coffee in his hand. "I brought coffee…" He held the cup up like a salute and placed it down at the edge of her workspace.

"You're in your flight suit." Her tone was quizzical, a little surprised. "Already?"

"Oh yeah, definitely." Nikon sat on the edge of the table and scooted a comp sheet over. He skimmed it while talking. "Commander Adama wants all Raptors on the flight deck… not the hanger, the actual flight deck and ready for operations. Basically a hornet alert watch." He saw the confused look from the young officer at the terminology. "All Viper tubes loaded and on standby, Raptors clamped to the flight deck and ready to launch… it's for when attack is imminent."

"Oh."

Antony shrugged. "Five or six hours. Our instructors at flight school 'forgot' we were out on deck during a practice alert watch… left us out there for about a day."

"Sounds awful."

"Bring a book or something."

Jessica conceded with a little side-to-side head wobble.

He started taping the comp sheet. "You don't need to work on this. You and Major Carter already figured out how they were tracking us. We sent the Raptor back to the Colonies to get help with Doctor Baltar… all the information we have on the _tel'tak_. We can't do anything else."

"I feel like it's my fault, Antony… the solution's there, right there," Jessica jabbed at the tablet computer, "but it's just… we can't fix them all." She sighed. "We could lose them and jump back to the Colonies without having to fight these ships."

"We're Colonials, Jessica, when our back's against the wall we fight… we tried, but we can't evade them. It's time to fight and kill the cocksuckers."

"And because I can't find how to fix the FTL tracking-"

"You did fix it, Jessica." He grabbed her hand but released it quickly. "The only way to send out Bulldog and Baltar back to the Colonies was to rebuild the engine from half a dozen different Raptor FTL cores and disregard almost all the safety protocols for the energizers and spatial matrix coils… and even then they might burn out before they get back and we all need to pray that a picket ship detects them or some patrol. But they can't be tracked now. We don't have the equipment to do that to the warships. It's not your fault."

She licked her lips and swallowed. "No, there has to be another way. Something _easier_."

"Sometimes there is no easy."

"I know…" she said softly, looking at the tablet computer she'd been working with in defeat. "Why didn't you go on the mission back to the Colonies? You're the best pilot we have." Antony chuckled. "It's true. A captain commanding a squadron of stealth ships that cost a fraking arm, leg, and cock…" her eyes ran up and down his green-tan flight suit. "Someone thinks highly of you."

"Maybe."

"So… why aren't you piloting the Raptor?"

"No," Nikon shook his head, "I couldn't go back to the Colonies and ask my pilots to risk their lives. I sent Bulldog because he's one of the best…" he smirked, "he objected and believe me I almost had to tie him into the Raptor. Uncle is a good ECO though and good pilot just in case anything happens. Bulldog didn't want to miss this fight… the first real fight we've had in thirty-four years. Everyone's talking. Everyone believes this will be the first battle of a new war." The pilot fiddled with the small flight comp on his wrist and was tapping at the buttons. "There was room. You could have gone back with Baltar. It would have been tight with some of the Goa'uld technology we crammed into boxes, but doable." He looked at his watch. "Hopefully they're back in the Colonies or somewhere close."

The Raptor had been part of Commander Adama's plan to send something back. He was going to do it anyway and just hope that the Goa'uld would ignore the low powered FTL emissions. And if they didn't then BSG-41 would open up on them and distract them as long as possible to let the Raptor and Baltar get back to the Colonies and warn them.

It had data disks on everything the Colonials had learned about the Goa'uld and non-vital pieces of the _tel'tak_, the Jaffa weapons, body scans of Teal'c and the snake in his abdomen, and everything else. Doctor Baltar had gone back with the Raptor, with Bulldog.

Baltar had protested, to save face and honor in front of the military types, but everyone could read the man now like a book. He wanted to get out of there but he'd spin it to benefit him, somehow. Taking his chances on a Raptor with an unstable FTL core seemed like a safe bet compared to engaging two very powerful, very technologically advanced alien warships.

Jessica scoffed. "No… yes… I wanted to. But I couldn't. I couldn't go while others stayed." She stood up and walked closer to him and grabbed the zipper for his flight suit, still only zipped to mid chest. "There." Jessica finished zipping it up and kept her head down. "The next jump they'll be on top of us." She looked up, catching his eyes, but stepped back. "Just kill as many of those bastards as you can. They're arrogant. You don't get cocky… the retribution of Nemesis is swift, Antony."

"I won't. Trust me. I don't plan on going anywhere."

"I'll pray for you… and please, just come back, Antony, just come back."

* * *

_**Herikropolis**_

_**Warship of the Domain of the Lord Sokar**_

**Deep Space **

_Herikropolis_ cruised through the blue-white tunnel of hyperspace and Sacmis, arms folded and index finger circling on her bicep, listened to the soft, low hum of the pulsating hyperspace engines. Her eyes traced the brilliant streaks of sub-space energies as they swarmed by and over the two _Ha'tak _attack ships. She took a slow and small step back from the viewing window, her black boot heels clicking on the marble deck and turned to face her bed chamber. Stepping off Sacmis glided over the cool, red and gray Ses vul Delmak marble until she reached the foot of her bed.

Her quarters aboard _Herikropolis_ were magnificent, far larger than the barracks and rows of bunks the Jaffa were assigned. They were in a word opulent, like everything meant for a _Goa'uld_. Rhadmet and the other Goa'uld had been her guests last night for a feast, which by tradition the ship master hosted twice a week. It had been a decadent affair with music, theater, alcohols from across the galaxy, and meats, fruits, breads, and pastries from planets thousands of light years away. Only by the strength of the Goa'uld symbiote did the host body not become fat, slow, and soft- and Sacmis's own personal self-control.

If she closed her eyes and sniffed the air she could still smell the faint remnants of the gluttonous episode hid under the smell of rich incense, burning in the corners of her room in six golden censers hanging from the ceiling.

She looked across her bed chamber, which was adorned with magnificent cloth tapestries of Sokar's victories and triumphs, from his conquest of Delmak to his victory over one of Ba'al's most impressive gathering of his fleets. Art, ranging from statues to portraits lined the walls that would glitter a slight red-gold when the light from the torches struck it.

Sacmis had six separate compartments; a bed chamber, a room for her uniforms and clothes, and three large, spacious chambers for entertaining and food preparation. There was a sixth, hidden behind her chamber was a small room which held a secondary and secret command console.

Sacmis turned to face the hidden chamber, disguised with a combination of Goa'uld holographic technology and precision engineering and bared her teeth at what it represented. The Jaffa rebellion had forced Lord Sokar to install such secret chambers in the last few years. The actions of the Tau'ri and the sholva, Teal'c were sparking increased resistance to Goa'uld rule.

With the rebellion gaining strength Lord Sokar had built such chambers into all of his attack ships. The Jaffa were clever in their sabotage of warships and the Tok'ra fiendish in their ability to subvert even the best of computer security and damage or take control of entire _Ha'tak_ mother ships.

Rumors were rampant that an elusive Tok'ra in the service of Apophis had forged orders to one of the System Lords underlings to attack a heavily defended base belonging to Morrigan. They had won, destroying a squadron of _Ha'tak _mother ships and then inexplicably exploded.

Since Ra's death the Jaffa and Tok'ra had increased their resistance a hundred fold. The Supreme System Lord's death had been a beacon to Jaffa whom doubted the validity of the Goa'uld claim to godhood. The betrayal by Teal'c, First Prime and commander of the vast armies of Jaffa under Apophis had been the second and last major event which had finally set the wheels of rebellion in motion.

The young Goa'uld had heard Sokar discussing the recall devices Apophis had installed in his death gliders after Teal'c's betrayal. He and his senior commanders had agreed that the secret installation of control rooms from within the private chambers of the ship master was prudent. Her personal quarters were protected by a hatch which appeared typical but had been forged of the strongest composites and melded with trinium. Hidden force shield generators and remote drones could be activated to disable intruders.

But she lamented at how much had changed to force those many viewed as gods to install such safeties.

She had not been alive long, but had seen the Goa'uld Dynasty challenged over and over. In the moments after she had taken this female body as host its mind had whispered to Sacmis that the Goa'uld would eventually fall. This host body was from the advanced Parallel Colonies, a territory of the Hebridians. The Goa'uld were too frightened to attack the Hebridians and challenge them and this body had been acquired when a solar anomaly had disabled a Hebridian merchant ship.

It was an embarrassment to the Dynasty that any conglomeration of worlds could resist the Goa'uld.

She had proven the strength and tenacity of the Goa'uld in her first victory when she crushed the mind of this host far more quickly than any other Goa'uld. She no longer had to suppress another's mind, fighting her for control of the body, trying to confuse her. Sacmis owned this host fully.

Yet there was still something there, buried deep, hidden in the dark recesses of her powerful mind, itching and scratching at her defenses.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Sacmis tore her eyes away from the secret chamber and moved closer to a body form on the right side of her bed, running her hand up and down the battle uniform displayed on its inanimate form.

The heretics who defied Lord Sokar, who had embarrassed the Hasykos- which Sacmis was more than willing to forgive had it not also embarrassed her Lord Sokar- and fled like cowards across hundreds of light years had been found. The Hasykos was ready to fight even if his battle plan was found wanting.

The method of faster-than-light travel these enigmatic people utilized was quite curious. The tactical capabilities of the drives were frightening. Yet only Sacmis seemed to see the disadvantages of attacking without proper reconnaissance. There were Tau'ri and another group who fought like Tau'ri aboard those vessels.

The dangers of the Tau'ri were great. With but one _tel'tak_ they succeeded in destroying an entire moon and raining fiery destruction onto the capitol world. With but a handful of men and women the Tau'ri had reached back and stricken Sokar again and again. Only the propaganda that fed the masses- that Apophis had led an attack fleet- had managed to control the raging masses.

She knew the dangers of inadequate preparation when attacking the Tau'ri. No reconnaissance beforehand had doomed Apophis's attack on the Tau'ri home world and rumors had circulated of powerful missiles which had leapt from the planet, stabbing up from the surface which had vaporized his _Ha'tak_ mother ships.

"An idiot…" she whispered, licking her lips and slowly narrowing her eyes as she stared into the flames of a torch flanking the entrance to her chambers. "_Lotar kas, kree_!"

Turning slowly she held out her arms as three young servants rushed in, three young women. Since her host body was so beautiful Sacmis had set a high, almost impossible standard to her Jaffa in their assignment to find potential hosts with the adequate physical attractiveness, the right muscle tone, the right curves and body structures to be accepted to serve as the lotars for Sacmis.

They had been with her for some time, years, gifted to stay young by the administration of Goa'uld drugs and technology. She knew the value of loyalty. Each of them was trained not only to cater to her whim but to fight and die for her if she so commanded.

Quickly, delicately, and calmly they undressed her as she stood almost perfectly still, moving her arms in precisely timed motions. The lotars allowed nothing to fall to the ground. Even her undergarments, which even a Goa'uld would blush at, were caught and handled with the utmost care.

As the three began to dress her she let the cool, comfortable air of the _Ha'tak_ wash over her naked body.

While Sacmis knew many human cultures had taboos about nudity, clinging to antiquated and confusing notions of modesty, the Goa'uld had almost no notion of such a ridiculous concept. To a Goa'uld strove to show off the physical beauty of his or her host to their competitors and subordinates. Such pursuits often took the form of provocative or opulent clothing, dependent on what the Goa'uld was attempting to show and what persona he or she had adopted.

Her lotars were also dressed in a fashion similar to their master; to show off their own bodies and for Sacmis to show other Goa'uld the fine potential hosts she possessed. Each young woman wore just enough with little left to the imagination of her guests.

Goa'uld culture had forever been a series of games, with each, from System Lord to minor administrator trying to find the most pleasing or powerful host for themselves.

Every display did have it place, though.

Sacmis, dressed in undergarments, turned to face her body form. Her eldest lotar brought out a light blue tunic. It was heavier than the white and red Sacmis had just stepped out of. This one was padded and lightly armored to protect against debris and bullets. Designed to be worn under the armor shining on the body form, it was not revealing or as beautiful as many of her other outfits.

Some Goa'uld preferred to remain in their every day attire. Such as the Hasykos.

The tunic ended slightly above the mid-biceps as a tight sleeve and as a small skirt cut at a downward angle, from mid thigh on the left to right above the knee on the right.

The lotars then lifted an armored, two-piece red-gold breast plate, connected by golden buckles and leather straps and stylized with the Mark of Sokar on the chest, small Goa'uld hieroglyphics at the clavicles, and the _Salatis_ rank insignia on the shoulder plates. The rear neck line of the armor was thicker and possessed a small helmet, recessed and hidden due to the Goa'uld metal folding technology.

Her servants finished dressing her with the addition of sandals, vambrace, and greaves. Each vambrace and greave was red and black with gold lettering in ancient Goa'uld; '_For Our God, Our Lives.'_ They bucked a tight brown leather belt around her waist, which had a small pouch resting on the left and right hip.

Hanging from the belt, over the groin, was also a small guard, a cartouche, studded with three golden jewels running vertically in the center and etched with the named of her command ship in ancient Goa'uld writing of the First Dynasty.

She activated the metal folding technology on her armor. The vambraces and greaves fully concealed the front and back of her limbs. With a _clink-whoosh_ the metal folded back and a final _click_, locked into small divets on the edges of the armor.

"Leave me now. Send in Hai'tar," she commanded, eyes glowing white-gold.

Her lotars bowed, not saying a word. She heard her chamber doors open, the door mechanisms grinding like stone.

"You sent for me, _Salatis_," her Guardsman, Hai'tar Ix sil Delmak vul Sokar said to her back, his voice strong and deep.

She heard him kneel as his armor clanked on the floor. The door closed shut with a muffled sound.

"Yes, Hai'tar… rise and join me." She motioned with a hand to a spot on her right.

Hai'tar did as his Goa'uld master commanded. A meter from her right shoulder, he stood facing her at a shallow angle to the viewing window, knowing how she preferred her Jaffa to approach her. Hai'tar towered over even the tall host body of Sacmis. Compared to the tanned Goa'uld host body his skin was pale, from time spent aboard star ships and within his armor and his short hair was a salt and pepper color, showing his age, which were mirrored in gray, flint-colored eyes. His broad shoulder and thick arms, made only more so by the slight V-cut of the armor of a _Dashmed_ _Guard_ would have intimidated any lesser man, woman, or Goa'uld.

Sacmis stood next to him confidently and unmoving, silently staring out the viewing window and watching the lines of hyperspace distortion as the _Ha'tak_ neared its targets.

The Goa'uld turned to face _her_ Jaffa.

The Dashmed Guard was a force of well-trained, well-equipped Jaffa warriors who excelled in protecting the numbers of minor Goa'uld a System Lord would have in his or her stead ship. Each System Lord had legions of Dashmed Guard to protect their vassal Goa'uld. It was a generic term used throughout the Goa'uld territories, begun by Ra, to signify an elite unit, much as the designation of 'Jaffa' were used to designate the enhanced, former human warriors of the Goa'uld armies. Each System Lord drew its palace guard from its own loyal divisions of Dashmeds.

Hai'tar's armor was similar to that of a Necropolis Guard, with the exception that it was all red, without the black streaks, and did not have the gaudy spikes. The helmet did not possess horns. In battle the Dashmed wore a similar head band to those the death glider pilots wore which projected a heads up display directly into their brain. Hai'tar wore his always and even in the presence of the Salatis kept a weapon discreetly pocket away in a small opening in his armor.

As Hai'tar moved forward her bowed his head in reverence and respect before looking up. He was caught off guard and for a frightful and worrying moment he saw a glitter of fear and doubt in the cold, steel eyes of the _Salatis_. He was about to speak but snapped his mouth shut to stop a comment he knew would anger the Goa'uld.

"You are a _Deshret_," Sacmis said, 'high captain', "of the ship's Dashmed Guard. My trust in you in absolute."

"As in mine in you, _Salatis_."

"I have told you that the Hasykos is incompetent. My counterpart on _Atat_ is a fool who sees this expedition as an opportunity for advancement and not for the idiotic ploy that it is. _Salatis_ Gilkan was a loyal subordinate but has seen the promises of glories as an excuse to undermine me. Do you doubt my assessment?"

"No, ship master, I do not. You are _Salatis_, Rhadmet is _Hasykos_. He is of higher rank but knows nothing of ship battles. He is a product of nepotism. He pursues this enigmatic enemy to quench a thirst for vengeance, a foolhardy move." Hai'tar said in a deep and raspy voice. He raised his chin as his master studied him once again. The Jaffa felt small until the burning stare from his master.

"Exactly, Hai'tar. But my disappointment lays with Gilkan, the fool. Hasykos will doom us all." Sacmis clenched her fist in the air in front of her chest and slowly opened. "If Rhadmet does not listen to reason then we will force him. I will not allow him to endanger _Herikropolis_."

It went without saying that she was more concerned with herself than the _Ha'tak_. Sokar had many attack ships but losing one foolishly was not the shining path in winning Sokar's blessing not would it help her achieve her own goals of rising in the ranks of the Goa'uld Dynasty.

"_Salatis_," Hai'tar whispered, "he brought his own contingent aboard. His personal Dashmed Guard will be in the _pel'tak_ during the battle as will Necropolis Guard. Glider Commander Nizsim has convinced him that his plan will work flawlessly… I fear he underestimates the capabilities of our unknown enemy. There have been powerful worlds with technology appearing to be comprised of primitive missiles and kinetic weapons. Many Goa'uld and Jaffa have lost their lives attacking such people and underestimating the enemy and their will, _Salatis_."

Hai'tar knew of this fact intimately.

"I am aware, Hai'tar." Sacmis turned back to face the hyperspace tunnel. "He has replaced you and the other Dashmed on the _pel'tak_ with his own inexperienced Jaffa."

"What you have said is true, Salatis. This is one more proof of the rot and corruption within the Goa'uld Dynasty. Lord Sokar-"

"Possess a vast domain with many soldiers and commanders. It is necessary, what we are doing, to show him that the old ways are leading to our destruction." Sacmis closed a fist, pounding it on the viewing window. "We are being challenged throughout the galaxy by more planets and aliens every year, Hai'tar." She breathed out, slowly, placing a hand on the Mark of Sokar emblem on her breast plate and grimaced at her small reflection. "The old System Lords are the virus which is ravaging the body. Rhadmet represents a contagion which will infect us all if we do not act."

"Does Lord Sokar even have the power-"

"He does, Hai'tar. This war will destroy the old Dynasty, the old System Lords, and usher in a new era of Goa'uld domination over this galaxy, with you, Jaffa, as our right hand. But Lord Sokar's underlings are also corrupt, like Rhadmet, and protect each other. We must act in order to alert our lord to the cancer within his domain." She paced off to the side of her bed. Sacmis swiped her hand over a wall decoration, revealing a secret alcove. Removing two devices she handed them both to Hai'tar. They had a small green crystal in the center, with small rectangular metal boxes on the end, and wire mesh running between. A small switch was on one end. "The Goa'uld Dynansty is crumbling, Jaffa. The Battle of Tazek'sur still resonates within the Jaffa society even today. Doubt has spread doubt about what the Goa'uld truly are.

"Are there others who will follow? Others beyond the walls of this ship?" The Jaffa spread his hands out, motioning at the bulkheads and to the outer chambers of her quarters.

Sacmis looked at him, tilting her head forward slightly. She considered the question. "I know of some who see the truth, Hai'tar. Younger Goa'uld born after Tazek'sur." She rolled the small devices in her palm and pushed her chin up quickly to signal her Jaffa to hold out his hand. Sacmis placed both devices in his palm but stopped, not retracting her hand as fast as she should have. This was strange… but her hand fell back to her side. "Give one to your second. When we are on the _pel'tak_ activate these at my direction. They will protect you both if we must act to counter Rhadmet's incompetence…"

* * *

**_Herikropolis_**

_Khetish_- Glider Commander- Nizsim cautiously buckled his safety harness after slowly lowering himself into his seat, like any sudden movement would undo his plans and expose his deception.

After dinner last night with the other Goa'uld on the _Ha'tak _he knew they were still fooled. Rhadmet was boasting of how today would be the day when these humans were killed. Sacmis had sat at the end of the table, glowering at the _Hasykos_ and barely saying a word. Nizsim, as he tightened the black, thick harness to a snug fit, grinned his satisfaction at the memory of last night and how he had antagonized the _Salatis_.

A few innocent sounding questions, a thinly veiled insult, and a covert, smug smile he had shared with only her had been enough to further divide her and Rhadmet. He quietly chuckled as he felt the rumble of his glider's engines activate. The Goa'uld were just so _easy_.

Nizsim extended his _kara ur_, activating the command controls on his death glider. He felt the small vibrations of the engine become rhythmic, heard its hum, and watching as the controls of interfaces in his cockpit came to life, self-updating with astrometric data and battle plans. He pressed in a four letter code, the buttons clicking and dimming, and then leaned back.

_Herikropolis_ shuttered under the impact of kinetic weapons and conventional missile fire. His death glider's sensors, tied into those of the _Ha'tak_, showed the approach of more enemy missiles. As the glider bay doors opened he saw the orange-red flares of the bubble shields. Orange-yellow bolts raced out from the secondary hull of the _Ha'tak_ and towards the enemy.

His death glider was the first of thirty-five to be launched by _Herikropolis_ to join an additional forty-two from _Atat_ and six _Al'Kesh_. Leaning back he closed the comm. circuit between his glider and the pel'tak. "Are you ready, Ferk'tak? Are the others?"

"Yes, Nizsim, we're ready," the Jaffa answered, voice unwavering. There was a tense silence. "I have talked to my fellow Jaffa and we are ready to die if it is required of us."

The Tok'ra shook his head and rolled, turning to face the Jaffa until his harness stopped his movement. "With luck and skill, Far'tak, few of us will die. Some will. But if we act quickly and decisively then these unknowns will be able to help us. And us, them." He looked the Jaffa in the eye and slowly nodded, not breaking eye contact.

A beep from his cockpit console forced Nizsim to turn back around. The glider attack was ready… he reach out, a balled fist with the exception of an extended index finger, and pressed the launch key.

The glider's interial compensators were overwhelmed for a moment as the small oval anti-gravity launch plate activated and sent Nizsim's glider, followed by two more, out of the _Ha'tak_ and into open space. The Tok'ra agent adjusted the band on his forehead and the HUD monocle which had become slightly dislodged from the gee forces and sudden acceleration. For months he'd been meaning to take a small head band from the supply crates, replaced this one which kept slipping during launch, but had always forgotten.

"All death gliders have been launched," Far'tak reported, his voice hard and quiet. "Wings one and two have formed up behind in standard formation. Wings three and four above and wing five below and behind. _Al'kesh_ are holding twenty-kilometers behind… signal incoming…"

Rhadmet appeared. "_Khetish_ Nizsim. You will accelerate and attack the larger ships of these cowards immediately and destroy their gliders for our bombers to attack." The image vanished.

The sight of enemy fighters and gunships appeared on the glider's sensor screen. The Jaffa were outnumbered nearly ten to one.

"Fool," Far'tak muttered.

Nizsim's eyes went up and back, like he was trying to look back at Far'tak while keeping his head still and facing forward. "Order my squadron to form up and begin moving to the flanks. Kirtun will lead the main attack… tell him we will be attacking those gunships they have launched. Begin activating electronic countermeasures."

"Compensating for electronic interference…" Far'tak informed his commander. "The enemy craft have slowed acceleration… current distance is fifty-eight thousand kilometers, _Khetish_. The computer has revised estimates… enemy craft at over two hundred and twenty… thirty-two of those appear to be larger… gunships, _Khetish_." The Jaffa growled, tense and anxious and he waited for the Tok'ra to give him the order to signal the enemy and his fellow free Jaffa brothers to begin their attack.

A black pit had formed in Far'tak's stomach about killing his brothers. But he had recruited only those he knew with assurance who would rebel against false gods. He had looked intot he eyes and seen the soul of his fellow Jaffa. Many would die for Sokar willingly and gladly, believing it to be the only way to enter the Jaffa paradise of Kheb.

"Steady…" Nizsim said to calm him down. He banked the death glider and the other rebel Jaffa followed moving his death glider and the other seven to a position on the flank and slightly to the rear of fifteen gliders from wing one and two and behind two _Al'kesh_.

The _Al'kesh_ had much more powerful sensors than any death glider, even Nizsim's own which had been modified and upgraded for a Goa'uld, including higher acceleration, better inertial compensators, and a higher rated staff canon.

The only other such gliders which compared to his own were commanded by the _Atat_'s glider commander, leading wings three and four and a third Goa'uld leading the fifth wing as support and to cover the _Al'kesh_.

* * *

_**Valkyrie**_

"DRADIS contacts… _Ha'tak_ class."

"Set Condition One throughout the ship," Commander Adama ordered. The klaxons blared as the tactical officer's voice sounded everyone to their condition one stations. In the passageway outside CIC the Old Man could hear feet pounding. "Load anti-ship missiles… prepare decoys."

Almost instantly a fire team of Marines entered the CIC, taking additional sentry positions. A handful of sailors also followed on their heels, two carrying bags marked with the rod of Asclepius; medics.

"Load anti-ship missiles and prepare decoys, aye, sir," Colonel Tigh repeated, sending the order to tactical. He moved quickly to the side of the Old Man. "You sure you want to do this?"

"This isn't perfect. But they haven't caught us with our pants down. We knew it'd be soon. Let's get it over with.

Adama glared back, sharing a moment with his XO, and Saul answered with a wily grin. "Good."

The two exchanged quick nods.

Nearly ten thousand sailors, hundreds of pilots, and hundreds of Marines throughout the battlestar group rapidly moved into action. Their training took over, learned instincts. Every man and woman knew there was a chance of death, that their next moments may be their last before entering Elysium, but the mission, their friends and buddies were their concern.

Rifles and armor were handed to Marines. Damage control crewmen donned protective suits. Viper and Raptor pilots jumped in their craft. Everyone was ready.

Within the deeply buried CIC, slightly foreword of amidships and buried under thick armor and a dozen decks they could feel the rhythmic vibrations as the missile turrets empties their stores, forward to aft. Outside dozens of missiles, unseen by any crewman within the battlestar, were streaking towards the enemy, leaving a thin contrail of exhaust from their raging tyllium ion-pulse engines.

Warheads were locked on target.

Adama looked up, eyes like slits, as he tried to guess the next moves of the Goa'uld. The _Ha'tak_ attack ships were coming in straight and fast, right up the throat of the battlestar group. His ships had turned already, presenting their forward aspects to the enemy combatants. Hundreds of small DRADIS contacts marked with 'missile-c', the 'c' for cluster, streaked across space. He saw the DRADIS refresh every quarter second… eighty k-klicks… seventy-nine k-klicks…

"They're coming in slow…" Tigh observed, "taking their time. Trying to measure us up."

The Commander didn't answer. He was poised in his command position, ready to issue orders, with his head and neck back with eyes locked on the DRADIS monitors and hands in a loose ball with fists on the command console.

The Goa'uld were at extreme missile range. The turrets would propel the missiles part of the way, with boost from their engines. At one thousand kilometers the missiles would enter terminal attack phase, eject small decoy flares or rockets, and the tyllium engines would 'overcharge' and boost the missile's acceleration to achieve a velocity sufficient to break through the anti-missile fire from a warship- a Colonial or Cylon designed warship.

_Ha'tak_ attack ships had to their advantage which made Colonial weaponry much less potent; active defenses, electronic warfare capabilities, and shields.

Shields. A missile could hit a shield and damage to a warship would be minimal, only bleed through… maybe.

And that was scary.

Adama's lip curled as the missiles closed and he felt his gut twist and he subtly shifted left to right on his feet, like he had pins and needles. Inwardly nervous he displayed nothing but the stoic and calculating personality the Colonial military demanded of its personnel. And in the spirit of aggressiveness he had fired first fully knowing what he was committing his battlestar group to. There would be no surrender here, no capitulation because he knew his men and women would never submit to such an authority and he knew this Goa'uld was here to break them. Those two ships had followed them across hundreds of light years, over and under the galactic plane, forward and backwards. They were committed to his death like he was committed to theirs.

"We'll need FTLs spooled and ready," Adama said quietly, not taking his eyes from the DRADIS, "and keep the next phase fluid. I want to draw their gliders and bombers out. Vipers will be useless attacking those mother ships."

"Keep the FTL spooled, Navigation," Tigh ordered, walking back over to his side of the command console. "_Acacus_ missiles loaded, Bill." The XO looked up from his console display where a small screen and message had appeared indicated 'green' for a third salvo.

The XO still had that grin on his lips and he had to keep both hands pressed firmly on the edge of the console from appearing too excited. Tigh had full confidence in the plan they'd devised, full confidence in the Old Man. He was ready and eagerly waiting to unleash sink his teeth into the Goa'uld.

The Commander briefly skimmed the _Acacus_ missile load outs. The missiles were designed as large anti-ship missiles with long range and were a 'modular' missile. The warhead utilized the most powerful non-nuclear explosives in the Colonies. Small panels on the sides of the missile could deploy decoys and miniature electronic mites for EW or ECM.

Unlike the first strike the second strike was meant to do damage. Nuclear missiles were authorized- they always were- but there were other considerations to using them at the moment.

"Hold launch." Adama raised a hand then pointed at DRADIS. "We want them to launch their strike craft first before we start trying to screw with their scanners." Adama felt the tingle rush through as the attacking force came closer.

"All ships have reached battle positions," Captain Alfred Papadakos at tactical reported. He brought up a display on the current position of the Goa'uld warships. "Telescopes have sighted bay doors opening… probability is high they're about to launch gliders…" the DRADIS beeped again with new alerts. "They've launched their bombers."

"Missiles impacting in six seconds… five… four… three… two… one… missiles have impacted," another chief petty officer from tactical reported in a high voice. She swiped a hand across her nose and grunted, too softly for anyone to hear. "Impacts appear to be one hundred and eight meters from secondary hull along their primary horizontal axis."

Their telescopes recorded massive detonations. Large heat blooms appeared in the middle of space, almost large enough to engulf the _Ha'tak _from sheer weight of fire. Nothing was there except for a golden-yellow energy shield.

"DRADIS showed energy flares, some of the missiles were intercepted," Tigh grumbled. Tigh's eyebrows rose. "It looks like we did do some damage though." He motioned at one of the read outs being projected onto the console, one which visualized the data gathered from telescopes. "Looks like there was a small decompression on that secondary hull…"

There were a few looks from the CIC personnel close enough to overhear Tigh. They'd hit the thing with enough ordnance to do far more than cause a 'small decompression' on a battlestar.

"Not enough, but I'll take it. Probably a…" Adama trailed off as the hatch to CIC opened. Majors Carter and Amorak entered, followed by Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill with Doctor Jackson catching up as a Marine followed them all in. "Probably a fluke, Saul." He split his attention between XO and SG1. "it was just a test. Tactical," he barked, "interception assessment?"

"I take it they've found us?" O'Neill quipped. Adama, Tigh, and Xanthis all looked up. His statement of the obvious earned him a look from Major Carter and eliciting a raised eye brow from Teal'c. Tigh's eyes narrowed, almost burning holes in the back of O'Neill's head as he walked past the sultry XO and to Adama. "Anything we can do?"

"Interception assessment," Adama answered curtly with a nod to the tactical weapons chief to give his report.

Chief Henri Xanthis had half walked, half jogged to the command console from tactical in less than half a dozen steps. "Assessment shows a seventy-one percent interception statistic, sir." He brought up more imagery from the strike and a quick computer analysis. "Our decoys and mites were able to spoof the Goa'uld sensors into tracking them- twenty-eight percent interception statistic on them, sir."

Major Amorak smiled with a concerned look. "Interception statistics for the missiles are high and low for the spoofers but we had only a few modified missile loads in the first salvo."

Carter agreed. "This is all based on the X-301 project, Commander, but once you use the modified missiles in full salvos you should get more clean hits."

Adama considered it and nodded. "Thank you, Major Carter. Major Amorak, please escort Major Carter to a station where she can monitor our progress in more detail."

"Major Carter, over here," Amorak said, waving and giving the major a tug on her BDU sleeve just below the elbow. "We have stations at tactical…" The two women went to occupy a console which would display any sort of data needed to aide them in the fight.

Colonel Tigh took a step to the side, gesturing for the three others to take positions. He held up a hand to Jackson, pressing on his chest. "You can watch for over there, Doctor," he grumbled and pointed a few steps back. "We don't need CIC any more crowded."

"Colonel O'Neill, Teal'c," Adama greeted, looking over the brim of his glasses, "what is your assessment?"

O'Neill started to point when the DRADIS operator shouted something and the ship shook violently. Outside the ship the plasma bolts had crossed the distance of the void between the two foes and slammed into the bow and ventral aspect of _Valkyrie_. The lights in CIC dimmed and cut out as surge breakers and electrical safeties blocked overloads.

One tech was knocked off his feet, slamming his chin into a duty station. Medics in the rear of CIC, watching from the auxiliary weapons station rushed forward when the shaking stopping to help the wounded sailor.

"We're receiving a transmission, sir!"

"Headsets," Adama ordered Tigh, Teal'c, and O'Neill. He picked up his receiver and wrapped the cord lengthwise and held it up to his ear. With two fingers he signaled for the comm. tech to patch the signal through.

"This is Commander William Adama… you have fired on and attacked-"

"_Show yourselves and kneel before your gods, cowards."_

Adama's browed furled in confusion.

O'Neill, unsure if his headset could transmit, played it safe and held a hand over the mic boom. "They usually communicate with a video signal, too and make some megalomaniacal demand… like kneeling," he explained quickly.

Teal'c tilted his head in agreement, moving a step closer to Adama. "The Goa'uld will fire warning shots after your salvo. Many Goa'uld are known to let an enemy they believe to be inferior fire first to prove Goa'uld superiority and intimidate the enemy into surrendering."

"_Surrender immediately and I, acting in Lord Sokar's name, will be lenient. Your vessels lack shields. Those were merely warning shots. Your deaths will be quick. Surrender your ships and SG1 to us."_

"Saul," Adama hissed at the XO, "targeting solutions on the ship the transmission's coming from." He pressed the PTT. "This is Commander Adama. You have fired on Colonial vessels. I will accept your surrender immediately." The Old Man looked tired but somehow invigorated.

Teal'c and O'Neill exchanged glances. They each saw a spark in the eyes of Adama and Tigh. They both knew battle and wouldn't shy away when the options forced them to engage. The two displayed a calm which had been forged and tempered in the Cylon War.

"I don't think there's anything else to do." O'Neill said, bobbing his head in a casual agreement with what Commander Adama had demanded of the Goa'uld.

"_Commander Adama. Whomever you claim to fight for, you defy your god-"_

"Give me a fraking break." Tigh scoffed, almost spitting. "… a fraking grandiose religious nut ball."

"Fire missiles. Order Vipers to engage immediately." Adama barked, slamming the phone down and cutting off the Goa'uld… which felt pretty damn fraking good. "The use of nuclear ordnance is authorized by the Vipers. Once we take out the death gliders we-"

"Sir…" Papadakos said excitedly, "sir… we're getting something, another transmission from the death gliders… some of them are falling back, sir…"

Commander Adama pushed his shoulders back almost until the tips of his scapula touched, his back cracking, and leaned to look back at the DRADIS. The rightmost monitor zoomed in when he hit a key on the command console and he could see the death glider formation breaking apart for an attack run… but way too early. A rook mistake… 'what the frak' he mumbled, eyes narrowed at the little blips. His nostrils flared outwards and he rubbed his neck and in one motion his hand swept up the wireless receiver.

"_This is Nizsim… Tok'ra agent_…"

* * *

Lt. Colonel Costos Yannis, Uppity to his pilots, flicked through the various HUDs projected onto his helmet. He checked his DRADIS and nodded calmly to himself as the last man in his squadron formed up into an on oblong W formation, each Viper spaced five hundred and fifty meters from its comrade.

His squadron of twenty Vipers took a slightly right-of-center position as two additional squadrons from _Valkyrie_ formed up at staggered intervals above and below. Seventy Vipers from _Gorgon_, keeping their acceleration low, had already fired off a single decoy from their internal R-racks to test the active and passive defenses of the incoming death gliders.

Three squadrons of Raptors, and two additional SAR Raptors were taking the far 'left flank' and holding at six hundred kilometers off and a hundred back. Their long range decoy drones were already coasting ahead and half the Raptors were firing directional EM blasts at the enemy gliders it would be a miracle if they could communicate wirelessly… or whatever they called it, Yannis couldn't recall at the moment.

Far in the distance, beyond what a human eye could see without the aid of powerful optics, a force of alien warships, fighters, and some sort of massive bomber were moving quickly towards him and his compatriots. The enemy was throwing up EM interference, trying to spoof and fuzz up the DRADIS, but his Raptor ECOs and battlestar group techies were sending back some pretty damn clean targeting data.

Uppity clicked open his microphone and began broadcasting to his Vipers and Raptors on tight band. "Alright, by the numbers people… this is what we've been training for years for. No unnecessary risks and keep your distance. Missiles are cheap, lives are not… on my order, waste the frakers."

Keeping his short and sweet was good enough for him. And in all the pre-battle 'pep talks' it was tradition to throw in '…waste the frakers' at the end.

He had a warning broadcasted in from the command Raptor and flicked it to project on his HUD.

The gliders were returning a damn low DRADIS signature for what they should have been getting on the Raptors and even the battlestars. Those attack craft were three times the length and five times the width of a Mark V Viper. By all rights they should be pinging back a massive DRADIS signature. The return was something maybe one third to one-half the size of a Viper.

A beep came in from _Valkyrie_ and a message flashed. The first phase of the operation was commencing.

With a simple flick of the finger he jammed open the Viper Mark V's turbo engines for two point one second along with all the other Vipers. Their acceleration increased dramatically to match velocities with the death gliders.. A small optical scope on his Viper, which also served as a gun camera, zoomed in and showed him the formation- one he recognized as a modified 'V.'

He prayed to Ares and Poseidon to see this engagement through to the end and see the suns rise again on his home world and feel the cool and salty breezes of Picon on his face, arm in arm with his wife and children. He had years of training under his belt and had been an instructor at flight school and completed the Advanced Strike Craft Combat School and Strike Craft Tactics School before being promoted to major and his assignment as CAG.

He'd never seen combat. Not once. Only a relative handful of the pilots in the Fleet had seen combat in the last thirty years. There were always pirates and mercenaries and little guerilla groups sprouting up from time to time who thought it'd be a Good Idea to use old Vipers, Raiders, or any one of dozens of different attack craft the Colonies had built during its wars to raid shipping or launch attacks. But those were far and few.

As the anti-gee compensators caught up he felt himself easing from the back of the seat and he blew out, his hot breath causing a little bit of fog on the bottom of his helmet which almost instantly vanished.

Uppity looked out to the side and saw the faint glow of engines from his wingmen; Captain Andrea 'Goober' Yunn, a tall Gemenese woman and probably the most religious person he'd ever met and a Lieutenant Frank 'Shiny' Vas, a young man, average height with pale skin and who was prematurely balding despite all the medical treatments he could get his hands on.

"Alright Goober, Shiny… we'll be heading in on the lead pass if we have to go to guns."

The data was being relayed back from the decoys. The Goa'uld death gliders were good. Few had fired on the fake missiles.

"_Ready for this, sir,"_ Goober said, the wireless crackling her high soprano voice more than normal. "_Fraking interference, they're trying to jam us."_

"_All ready, sir."_

"Alright. Maintain comm. discipline, Uppity out."

The Lt. Colonel frowned at the read out projecting on his HUD. The fraking Goa'uld were throwing up some heavy jamming but the Raptors were doing a fairly good job of helping them simply brute-force through it. "This is Uppity to Raptor 0-4-3, launch additional comm. drones," he ordered. He saw the light flicker in reply and half a dozen small communication drones drop from the belly of the Raptor. He saw a message marked _High Priority_ being transmitted from the _Valkyrie_ laser comm. net. "All Vipers… _Valkyrie Actual_ is getting a transmission for the snakes… hold-"

His DRADIS was already being filled with missiles as they closed. The battlestars began dumping decoys, EW mites, and jammers. On his DRADIS half a dozen new _Valkyrie_ battlestars appeared for half a second until the green round blips changed to triangular blue to mark them as DRADIS decoys.

"All Raptors, move into position and-"

"_Valkyrie Actual to Uppity…hold fire and immediately update friend or foe with the following data…"_

For a moment he debated sending back a wireless challenge to the orders but the orders were legit. 'Goa'uld death gliders are friendly now?' he mouthed to himself. Orders were orders. His IFF codes were updated. The Vipers and Raptors were on standby with the updated codes. A little red circle appeared on his helmet as he activated his transmitter. "All Vipers and Raptors, weapons free, repeat, weapons free."

* * *

_Kheish_ Nizsim finished his broadcast. He placed his trust in 'Commander Adama' and the members of SG1. Nizsim knew the Commander had no reason to believe him, none at all. He had his doubts if SG1 would even believe him. The years he'd spent in Sokar's service had kept him distant, cut off from the Tok'ra. He knew that Major Carter had once been host to the cherished and brilliant Jolinar. But he knew little details about the current status of the relationship between the SGC and the Tok'ra.

His human host prayed while Nizsim devoted his full attention to waiting for a response from Commander Adama. It was almost immediate, mere seconds had passed, but it had seemed like centuries.

Nizsim's eyes widened, glowing, when he heard the Goa'uld language back on his glider's speakers.

"_Tok'ra… this is Teal'c. We have informed the Commander what and who the Tok'ra are. Commander Adama has pledged his ships will not fire on those transmitting the signal as long as they remain non-hostile."_

As he was about to respond the gliders still loyal to Sokar all banked, veering in for his rebel gliders. The transmission had been narrow-band, almost point-to-point but it had been unlikely the other Jaffa loyal to their false gods would not detect the broadcast. The other Goa'uld within the glider wings from both _Ha'tak_ mother ships were no fools, not like Rhadmet. Nizsim knew them to be arrogant, content to waste the lives of Jaffa for victories, but not idiots.

With his gliders out of formation and a transmission to the Colonial forces the other Goa'uld would know he had betrayed them.

He immediately ordered the gliders behind the _Al'kesh_ to open fire.

Without its shields one of the six _Al'kesh_ bombers quickly disintegrated. Two of his gliders had perfect shots on the bombers. In a blinding flash dozens of low powered plasma bolts lashed out, glowing like miniature suns, and splashed on the bombers. The plasma bolts quickly lost containment as their magnetic bottles disintegrated. The hot gasses boiled the gray-black armor plating of the bomber, ripping and stabbing into the craft. Air superheated and plasma dug it claws deep.

The bolts had hit the engines and burned to the energizers and naquadah generators. Internal shielding around the power plant failed.

The entire process of firing on the _Al'kesh_, the plasma bolts hitting the hull and boiling it away, and the bomber exploding, cracking in two and then three, happen in mere seconds.

"All rebel Jaffa gliders… we have confirmation the other forces will aid us, come to-"

A blast hit Nizsim's glider, shorting out his sub-space transmitter. He barred his teeth, hissed and cursed, his eyes glowing golden-white as he looked over his shoulder, tracking the glider which had dared attack him.

The Tok'ra, years in service to Sokar, had been forced to live and act as a Goa'uld. Even to a powerful symbiote mind the stress of living a dual life- outwardly being cruel and evil and vindictive while inwardly sympathetic, repetent, and repulsed by such actions- could take its toll. Nizsim still suffered from overreaction and impulsiveness and a need to take vengeance on those who would offend him by attacking!

It took his human host all his strength to keep his Tok'ra symbiote calm, responsive.

Nizsim calmed as he threw his glider into a tight barrel roll as he shot up on the Y-axis, plasma blasts missing his fuselage by mere meters and his wingtips by even less. He dove the death glider and fired, missing his target, and he and fought and fired in a scissor attack.

The Tok'ra knew the Jaffa in the other glider; experienced and well-trained with dozens of battles to his name, the enemy decelerated, chiopping down his velocity as Nazsim overshot and using the death gliders gravity drives, the Jaffa plowed forward, firing again. Nizsim spun his glider on its long axis and began a maneuver to come up and over the cockpit of the Jaffa in pursuit.

As the Jaffa loyalist brought the nose of the glider up, firing on Nizsim's tail the Tok'ra dove and pulled a hard reverse. Low powered, rapid shots tore into the Jaffa glider slightly off center, burning through its armor and breaking containment on its naquadah reactors.

More gliders swept in.

The Tok'ra accelerated to top velocity, aimed back at the _Ha'tak _motherships and banked the glider, pulling in behind one of the Jaffa loyalists. He pressed the golden fire button quickly, cycling his staff canons on rapid fire. A dozen blast leaped out of each of his two canons. While lowered powered than typical bolts the auto-fire was perfect for the glider performing evasive maneuvers.

Two blasts hit the portside wing. The Jaffa pilot tried to compensate. Nizsim steadying his glider for the kill shot but broke off as a second loyalist glider swept in. Every Jaffa loyal to Rhadmet was closing in on him.

His wing mate's glider fired at the disabled glider he'd wounded, two blasts hitting center on the fuselage. The enemy glider crumpled, its wings blasted away in opposite directions. The cockpit separated in a fiery mess and exploded and threw a thick cloud of debris in Nizsim's way.

He pulled back on the control stick, his glider swooping down on the Y-axis.

"Three gliders in pursuit, Nizsim" Far'tak reported.

Golden bolts raced by the cockpit. One scratched the cockpit, boiling the ferra-plastic and scorching it brown.

The warnings in the glider were like beating drums with no rhytm. The lights were frantic and pulsing randomly. Nizsim's HUD was flashing, warning him that his was in the crosshairs of the loyalist gliders. From the output signature of the glider immediately behind him he knew it to be the Goa'uld commander from _Atat_.

He tapped the control stick left and right before jamming it forward and left, spinning his glider up and left. He cracked his neck looking through the cockpit ceiling and could see the Goa'uld as the tight and sharp maneuver brought the two gliders barely fifty meters from each other.

In space he saw one of the rebel Jaffa gliders explode.

Behind him he heard Far'tak curse. "_De'jut melva_, missiles incoming Nizsim from the Colonial craft… a lot of them."

The Tok'ra swallowed. His glider had been targeted by the fire control and detection system the Colonials were using. All the gliders had been. He knew the slang of the Tau'ri was to 'light up' an enemy craft. He could do nothing other than what he was doing now; attack the loyalist Jaffa and bring down as many as he could before those missiles struck.

He would hope he could sow enough confusion in the ranks of the glider pilots that they could be too distracted to effectively fight him, intercept missiles, and engage in evasive maneuvers.

"Now we hope they believed us…" he whispered as he threw his glider into a intense space combat maneuvers.

The Jaffa gliders not transmitting the new IFF codes began exploding all around Nizsim. He traced the dull gray contrails from point of impact back to the elusive dark nothingness of space where the Colonial craft had launched their missiles.

* * *

"Vipers… target enemy death gliders… all gliders transmitting friendly IFF are no go," Uppity ordered, relaying the change in friend or foe designations between his Vipers, the Raptors, and the death gliders. "Raptor Zero One through One-Five lock on with decoys. Vipers stand by for attack plan delta-one."

The flight leaders in the squadrons clicked back confirmations to their squadron leaders who then passed on the squadron-wide confirmation to the CAG and Viper commander for this mission.

Uppity glanced down at his DRADIS. The friendly IFFs being transmitted were slowly decreasing as loyalist Jaffa began to whittle down the gliders of their traitorous brethren.

Still, the traitors had done a spectacular job throwing off the loyalist and sowing confusion within their formations. The bombers had broken off and loyalists were forced to cover them, decreasing their numerical advantage versus the traitors.

A seventh and then an eighth enemy glider disappeared from DRADIS. He mentally whistled at the sheer audacity, the tenacity, and the size of the balls those pilots had to have to take on such a number. One glider blip on the DRADIS in particular, the one who had transmitted was engaged in SCM and had just taken out another one of its kin.

The Vipers were within preferred missile range. This battle was going to be an oddity. They would be outnumbering their enemies for the first time since before the Cylon War where the robotic fighters and gunships and bombers would routinely outnumber Colonial fighter formations two, three, four or more to one.

And he had no problem with this flip flop.

War wasn't fair. Whatever made it easier for his pilots and whatever made it more likely for his men and women to return to their colonies and their homes.

A missile kill may not be glorious or showy but it gave the best chance of survival. Pilots were trained to kill from a distance. If the enemy got into gun range your odds of living decreased dramatically.

And if he died he knew his wife would take up the mantle of cliché, scour the underworld and kill him again.

"Fire!"

Hundreds of missiles, rockets, and decoys were launched within seconds. Uppity felt the vibrations of the missiles detaching simultaneously from his stub-wings' hard points. The tyllium engines ignited instantly and pushed the missiles forward leaving behind a gray trail of ionized tyllium exhaust.

The Raptors launched a second wave of rockets to accompany the first and pressure the glider pilots even more. If any survived the first strike then a second strike would be only seconds away.

Far in the distance little pin pricks of light began racing from one black and dark part of space to another, splashing like water on what could only be the hulls of the battlestar group. Major Amorak and Doctor Baltar had briefed them on what plasma weaponry would do; burn through the hull, boil the armor away, superheat the air, and continue burning. Most losses in battle, at least with massive ships like attackstars and battlestars were due to secondary explosions. Plasma seemed to be the perfect killer; it would burn and gut while a missile just exploded.

Uppity tracked the missiles, his Viper and the others closing in. Goober and Shinny were holding their positions on his wing well, Shinny not acting too aggressive as he had in sims.

The command and control Raptor at the rear of the formation, flying with the two SAR Raptors, relayed the DRAIS readings from its more powerful arrays back to his Viper. As the missiles entered terminal attack the Goa'uld somehow threw off the advanced electro-optical locks. Something was throwing off the locks, which should have been nearly impossible for the advanced Canceron built WarTek AFM-500 series of missiles.

A flash transmission alerted him; the command and control Raptor believed small lasers were believed to be burning the optical sensors on the missiles and with the jamming, the missiles weren't receiving control and guidance signals from the Vipers and the plasma blasts were throwing off the heat locks.

"Frak…" Uppity muttered, clicking his mic to transmit to the Vipers and Raptors to go in and fire a second time. In the distance he saw bright white flashes of nuclear blasts in a battle raging tens of thousands of kilometers away.

As missiles were knocked off course the sheer weight of numbers which did maintain lock and the confusion caused by those gliders-gone-defectors was enough to tear into the formation. One by one the gliders began disappearing from the DRADIS displays, their red circle blips flashing three times before dimming and finally disappearing.

A flash transmission appeared on his HUD. Change of plans. The battlestars launched _Stone Burner_ nuclear missiles and jumped away. They reappeared a quarter of a stellar unit away.

The missiles closed and one of the _Ha'tak_ mother ships began to slow…

* * *

**_Valkyrie_**

In CIC the crew braced themselves as more bolts slammed into the frontal and ventral armor. The superstructure groaned as explosive decompressions rocked the mammoth warship. Lights blinked out, emergency lighting activated. Alarms sounded in CIC only to be silenced by crew and only for another alarm to take its place.

Fighting an enemy which fired plasma was something no one had ever dreamed of. This should have been science fiction, not reality. Colonial science had studied energy weapons. Lasers were used for communications and blinding optics. But ships moved too rapidly and couldn't produce the power necessary to keep a laser pinpointed on one spot on the hull and burn through the almost ridiculously thick armor of a battlestar or baseship.

Plasma weaponry had been experimented with but Colonial science couldn't solve the problem of magnetic containment. A containment field could be generated but always fell apart after leaving the barrels. Power requirements and the safety issues with plasma and the expansion of the Colonial fleets as they prepared for war with each other had eliminated funding for such 'impractical' and 'cost ineffective' weapons.

Plasma weapons hadn't been developed for ship combat in the Colonials because nuclear weaponry was far easier and cheaper to employ. The liberal use of nuclear weaponry had seemed to always take care of their problems in the past…

Not so much now.

"Plasma strike incoming!" The tactical officer hurriedly reported.

Colonial DRADIS and telescopes picked up the heat blooms from dozens of plasma canons on the enemy _Ha'tak_'s. But detection could do little when the plasma bolts managed to cross that cold void between opposing forces and drench the hulls of its targets in super-hot gas, boil the hull, and peel back that vital skin protecting the delicate life forms inside…

Commander Adama's hand shot out, grasping Tigh on the shoulder. His old friend did the same and both steadied the other.

Tactical issued another report; "Enemy engaging at extreme range… distance seventy-three k-klicks, Commander. Damage control reports hull breeches on the starboard lateral armor belt, section nineteen through twenty-seven. _Ha'tak_ vessels designated _Alpha_ and _Bravo_ continuing on straight line intercept!"

The battlestar rocked again, this time more violently. The command console displayed a green battlestar lit with red circles and square. An alarm flashed and two turrets on the starboard hull lit up red, out of action.

"Roll the ship," Tigh ordered.

"This is what they do, Commander," O'Neill said, his hands holding onto the console. "We've seen it… uninventive… they'll come in and just go right for the kill because they think you're vulnerable."

Adama nodded quickly, hard. "Firing solution Delta-Nine," he ordered as he changed the displays on his command console. "Saul." He pointed to the 'formation' the two _Ha'tak_'s were assuming. "They've got two _Al'kesh_ hanging back and eighteen more gliders."

"I say take 'em out. We need to show them we mean business," the XO suggested.

"Missile interception statistic is at sixty-three percent, sir.… none made it through the shields," tactical reported.

The _Ha'tak_'s were seen on DRADIS moving slightly higher on the Y-axis, avoiding the kinetic rounds the battlestars and attackstars had fired. At extreme range, against moving target, kinetics were useless.

The battlestar group fired again as their missiles launched as one large swarm.

With each launch the Colonial warships modified their firing data, changing how their decoys and jammers operated and the ECM packages on the missiles.

_Gorgon _began launching additional DRADIS buoys as part of its missile salvos, placing powerful sensor units closer to the approaching Goa'uld warships.

"Any second…" Tigh whispered, wincing as the missiles moved closer and closer. His eyes watched DRADIS and Commander Adama's watched a video window on the command console. A direct feed from the battlestar's optical telescopes, focused on the lead _Ha'tak_ _Alpha_ would give visual confirmation of hits.

_Valkyrie_ rumbled, Tigh's knees slightly buckling.

Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c were watching, splitting their attention between DRADIS and video feeds. Daniel had moved over to join them, sneaking by Colonel Tigh's distracted eye.

"Yes!" Tigh shouted. Adama pumped his fist. "Some of the fraking missiles got through!"

That was a much needed moment of celebration.

Heat blooms from within the shields and atmosphere being ejected into space did enough to quiet the spirits in CIC. Three of their missiles had penetrated on _Alpha_ but two had hit the secondary structure surrounding the primary pyramid. A third missile had penetrated on the extreme edge of the bubble, to the port side of the pyramid, but hadn't been able to activate its maneuvering thrusters to hit anything. The damage wasn't even minimal.

"Celebrated too soon," Adama said quietly. He rubbed his brow. "Any suggestions, Colonel O'Neill? Teal'c?"

"Hit them with everything. Nukes." O'Neill said.

Adama looked over the rim of his glasses, his eyes a dark fury. "You told us the Goa'uld like to engage at knife-fight ranges… we're pretty good at that ourselves, Colonel. Navigation, prepare for jump zero one. Tactical, launch sparrow decoys."

"Sir," Papadakos barked, "one of the attack ships, Alpha, it's slowing sir. DRADIS detected massive energy discharges eminating from the base of the pyramid and the lateral forward edge of the secondary structural ring. They appeared to be internal, sir."

Teal'c stepped forward, brushing against Tigh. "May I see the damage, Commander Adama?" The Commander nodded and brought up an image. "Those explosions have occurred at the gravity drive generators and the main shield arrays, Commander. The _Ha'tak_ you have designated as Alpha has been successfully sabotaged as the Tok'ra so claimed."

"Good…" the Old Man whispered. "Relay message to our attack craft we're jumping and to assume stand off defense profiles." He waited a moment until the orders were relayed. "Saul. We're going to launch decoys and jump, confuse them a little, and bring _Bravo_ out, see if we can get her to move ahead of _Alpha_ and catch them one by one."

"Think they'll go for it?" Saul asked.

"I hope so."

* * *

Nizsim choked and coughed as his glider was hit and the far section of his wing tip peeled away and ripped, tumbling behind him and belching fluids. The jagged cuts from where the tip had broken were dripping away as the residual plasma continued to eat away and boil the armor.

He banked again, two plasma bolts missing his damage glider. His Tok'ra enhanced reflexes forced his hand to twitch, pull the glider up on the Y-axis, and spin as dozens of missiles flew by. On his ferra-plastic cockpit he saw the brilliant flashes as missiles smashed into the loyalist death gliders and _Al'kesh_ bombers. One bomber above him was hit by two missiles and began to dive towards his glider. It was hit a third time on the ventral aspect, a fireball shooting out from where armor was pierced and broken. A fourth missile detonated right in front of the cockpit on a proximity charge, sending flechettes and shrapnel through the ferra-plastic and ripping apart the Jaffa crew.

His battle was done as the Colonial craft continued to destroy the Goa'uld loyalists.

Nizsim checked how many of his own Jaffa had survived… not many. Their only revenge would be in the sabotage of _Herikropolis_…

* * *

_**Valkyrie**_

_Valkyrie_ twisted on its axis again, firing as _Bravo_ closed. On DRADIS one of the attack ship, _Attia_, began to slow.

"_Attia_'s not doing well, Bill," Tigh reported, flinging a comp sheet and shooing back a DC man back to his station. "She's lost thrusters… oh frak…" He raised a finger and pointed.

On the DRADIS the attackstar began to slow rapidly. Her maneuvering was shot. Her missile tubes had been fused from plasma scorching and burning the hull, boiling the armor, and turning it to molten slag. The telescopes and sensors were already showing massive secondary explosions along the later magazines on the starboard side.

Flames were gushing like geysers from her aft. The engineering section had a hole clear through, burned through dozens of decks and bulkheads, right between her engines. If she somehow survived she wasn't going anywhere.

The crew of _Valkyrie, Pan, Gorgon,_ and _Chios_ couldn't see the specifics of what was happening. None of the commanders of the Colonial warships could focus so intently on one ship to watch it as it crossed the line no warship and crew ever wanted to cross and as it began to rapidly approach its inevitable death.

Nearly a thousand crewmembers were trapped on the attackstar. A few short range shuttles managed to fly away…

Her port engine began to flicker. The ion-pulse engines coughed, the small ion trail extended hundreds of meters from the engine exhaust port. It coughed again and went black.

The engine mount seemed to bulge at the seams. It seemed to ignite again, like it had new life. But the exhaust wasn't the cobalt blue it should have been. Red flames exploded outward, separating engine and mount from attackstar.

The ship reacted violently, like a man hit in the back of the spine with a sledge hammer. It convulsed up. The bow came up on a delay, like a wave at a Pyramid game sweeping the stadium. Armor plates broke loose and tumbled into space. The hanger bay exploded into a fiery inferno which quickly burned itself out.

A shuttle was caught in the explosion but hers was too small to even see compared to the beast as it tore itself to pieces.

In one final move the ship seemed to fall in space, like an invisible hand pushing it back down. A moment of peace. And in one final fit of violence for a ship built for violence the colossal explosion tore its spine and broke its back. The tyllium ignited and the port side evaporated in an explosion. Everything starboard of midline tumbled away as the force of the explosion pushed it and exploded into a half dozen massive pieces as the shockwave tore into its destroyed body.

The whole destruction of _Attia_ and the death of her crew had taken less than ten seconds.

She was the first Colonial warship destroyed in thirty-four years. In a battle which had waged for so few minutes so many men and women had lost their lives…

"Frakers," Saul muttered.

"Bring us around, load strike package Decimation for _Stone Burner_ nukes. Have Raptors jump. I want their missiles taking out _Bravo_ immediately."

The orders were relayed and Raptors began disappearing and reappearing on DRADIS behind _Bravo_, firing missiles and rockets while a few specially armed Raptors pelted the shields with missiles modified to hopefully pass through.

Their attack was a ruse, an errand in near futility in damaging the mighty alien warship. It's true purpose was to distract them.

Commander Adama knew the Goa'uld were arrogant. They would see the destruction of one of his warships and the damage to the others as proof they would prevail, proof they were untouchable. They would destroy his ships. It would only take a little more time than they were used to. But the Commander wasn't going to let that happen.

The ship rocked as more plasma bolts hit. Outside, if one could see the ships, they were still rotating on their long axis while firing massive maneuvering thrusters all over the ship. _Valkyrie_ was dodging unguided plasma as well as she could, which wasn't saying much since she was a big target, but combined with a flak field was able to destabilize the magnetic bottles of more plasma bolts. Every little advantage helped.

And the pitiful dodging was only possible because they were at extreme range. What Commander Adama was planning would make dodging impossible.

"Prepare for jump. Deploy decoys."

Ports slid open and large decoys on short burning, very powerful tyllium engines were shot in groups of twelve to port, another group of twelve 'down' away from the ship, and a third group to the rear, past the engines and speeding away. On DRADIS it would have looked like three more _Valkyrie_'s had somehow magically summoned themselves to the battlefield.

"Decoys deployed and transmitting. Signature match," tactical reported.

"Navigation standing by!" Tassios shouted, excited and looking right at the Commander, blood running down her temple and just barely touching the fold of her right eye.

Commander Adama turned to Saul. "Give the order, friend."

The XO grinned like a wolf ready to pounce. "Yes, sir! Navigation, order all ships to jump to position one… now!"

"Aye, sir… relayed… jumping in three… two… one!"

The four remaining warships of BSG-41 put the loss of _Attia_ behind. They jumped closer to the _Ha'tak_, within thirty thousand kilometers. Immediately the gun turrets and missile silos of the four opened. Half their _Stone Burner_ nuclear missiles and dozens of conventional missiles were flushed from their tubes.

Around the _Ha'tak_ the Raptor jumped away, seconds from the nuclear missile impacts.

Some of the missiles were shot down. Some were thrown off course into the endless void of space by the advanced EW system on the Goa'uld ships. Enough hit the shields to cause them to flickers. A second wave of missiles hit. Not many penetrated but enough.

There were simply too many missiles. The _Ha'tak_ could take punishment a Colonial warship couldn't. The shields and its hull materials were superior but not impervious. Colonial ships could take nukes but no known ship could take the amount of nuclear weapons thrown at it. Not even a _Goa'uld_ frontline warship.

Half a dozen warheads were the first to penetrate. One struck the _pel'tak_, two right above the glider pays, and four various points on the outer, ventral, and dorsal aspects of the secondary hull. The _Ha'tak_ rocked and shuttered against the impacts as the warheads released their violent nuclear energies. Light brighter than ten thousand suns engulfed the _Ha'tak_.

Across its hulls staff canon emplacements were washed away, crumpled, and destroyed as hull armor was violently ripped from its bindings. Part of the secondary structure, starboard to the _pel'tak_ began to break, the hull groaning under the conflicting stresses as part of it wanted to go one way, part the other and it all being weakened.

Internally the glider bay was vaporized. Secondary explosions belched outwards as the environmental shields in the bay failed. Jaffa in the outer sections of the ship, close to the hull, were smashed against bulkheads as compensation systems failed, their bones reduced to nothing but dust and their bodies to a bloody red soup.

The battlestars left formation and jumped in even closer as a second wave of nuclear missiles struck and penetrated. Warheads dug and clawed into the weakened armor and more of the ship was blasted apart and vaporized. Only by the strength of its construction, the desire of _Goa'uld_ to build their vessels like tanks, did it still survive.

_Valkyrie_ and _Gorgon_, their hammerheads facing the _Ha'tak_ fired again and again at a ship with no shields, finishing it off with their large axial kinetic canons. Dense slugs were accelerated to speeds which would crash them through the _Ha'tak_ and gut it from the inside out.

The battlestars fired and added their missiles to the destruction. From five thousand kilometers away the _Ha'tak_ was invisible to the naked eye. All that could be seen were the glorious fireballs, explosions, and small suns to tell anyone who could see that the ship was finished.

After firing more nuclear missiles, more kinetic slugs, and enough missiles that could destroy a battlestar group the _Ha'tak_ exploded into thousands of pieces.

* * *

Captain Nikon followed his orders to the letter. Today wasn't about making heroes. It was about living- glory was never about dying for your planet and species, but making the other bastard die for his.

And these frakers would gladly die for their false gods. And he felt no problems encouraging and helping them along with missiles and bullets to meet the true gods and feel the wrath of Hades as they toiled in Tartarus for eternity.

He fired a few token missiles at _Bravo_ while throwing his Raptor into heavy maneuvers. This close it was difficult for the massive staff canons to get a lock on him. The _Ha'tak_ mother ships had minimal anti-fighter guns and the majority of the canons were placed on the later points of the triangular sections of the secondary hull.

Few of the pilots he'd talked to cared for the _Ha'tak_ design, or anything Goa'uld. They seemed to take aesthetics and form over function to a different level, going for intimidation, and from what he had been told of Goa'uld in the galaxy, all of them used the exact same design or close to it of ships.

"Whatever…" he mumbled as his finger released the fire button. Three missiles from the pod launchers on the Raptor's fuselage sprinted forward. When they impacted he was already hundreds of meters away, his Raptor moving laterally, left and right, and vertically up and down and in mixed maneuvering motions.

He saw the flash message over his HUD appear and he barked back to the ECO to jump the Raptor as the nuclear missiles began pummeling _Bravo_. In an instant he went from there to here, sitting ten kilometers from a disabled _Alpha_ which was dead in the abyss of deep space and unable to maneuver. It's shields were down.

"Gliders!" Uncle shouted.

"I got the frakers, hold on!" Premie shouted back.

He could already see them but they were too slow coming out of the bay for him and his buddies swooping down and in for the kills. Each man and woman was ready and eager to avenge the loss of their buddies on _Attia_ and gods know how many others throughout the battlestar group.

The Raptor launched into an aggressive attack. He dodged a stream of low powered staff blasts from an anti-fighter turret and returned with his own fire, raking it with kinetic rounds and finishing it off with a salvo from his missile pods.

As the Raptor hugged the hull to avoid other fire he threw the Raptor into a quick bank. The turret he'd damaged exploded as its plasma cylinders lost their containment and the plasma was released in one marvelous explosion after he passed.

Premie maneuvered as two other Raptors came in from above him and one from the front at eleven o'clock. Four gliders were caught in between them. They coordinated their attack but one glider managed to turn in a high-gee maneuver and litter the eleven o'clock Raptor with plasma fire, destroying it.

Now the Colonial's turn they fired their missiles. They were too close for the gliders to throw off any of the locks in time. Two missiles from each Raptor slammed into each glider and the Raptors overflew the slowing debris.

He tapped the RCS thrusters and the Raptor turned a hard six and shot back towards the _Ha'tak_. A very low yield nuclear missile from a Raptor had detonated on the far side of the central pyramid, Premie only seeing the edges of the flash. To his three o-clock Raptors were swarming like insects, hornets, and firing missiles into the vulnerable portions of the _Ha'tak_, right at its windows or as close as they could get.

The turrets were begin steadily silenced as Raptor pilots and squadron commanders took their own initiative in how best to frak up this ship. The Tok'ra traitor had thrown a kink in their battle plans…

Far in the distance a blinding flash caught Premie looking directly at it but his helmet instantly polarized, shielding his eyes. "Holy frak! They got it!"

The Tok'ra had thrown a big wrench in their battle plans. The whole thing had been so simple; destroy the mother ships. 'Simple' as battle plans got- the objectives always seemed 'simple' but achieving them was what made a battle a battle, made it so fraking hard and required balls the size of a sun to pull off and achieve.

Now though the plan wasn't to destroy this mother ship. No. Commander Adama had seen the opportunity the moment the Tok'ra Nizsim had said he'd sabotaged propulsion and shields. Without those two systems the _Ha'tak_ was vulnerable. It was just sitting there, dead, like a Caprican sand cat without its equilibrium organ. It was vulnerable to Raptors and missile fire from the BSG…

And as orders came in for the Raptors to break off, Premie could see in his DRADIS more missiles incoming. Firing his thrusters, angling away, and tapping the turbos to get to escape velocity the _Ha'tak_ had stopped firing on him and his buddies. Instead it was lashing out at the missiles incoming. Sheer force of fire, the walls of missiles, stopped the _Ha'tak_ from hitting all of them. One by one the massive plasma staff canon turrets and anti-fighter turrets, anything that could fire that was still firing, fell silent.

The fight for the sailors and fighter pilots were over. It was time to repair their ships and take their Vipers and Raptors back to the barn to rearm and refuel.

Now it was time for the Colonial Marines.

* * *

**_Herikropolis_**

_Salatis_ Sacmis cursed the _Hasykos_ as he continued to fire on the Colonial warships. The golden-yellow orbs of plasma raced through the void, towards ships there and not there- one moment they were tens of thousands of kilometers away directly in front of the two Ha'taks and the next, fifty thousand kilometers somewhere else, seemingly not having moved. Yet the _pel'tak_ sensors showed these 'Colonial' warships to be in two places at once.

She narrowed her eyes at the screen. "They're using electronic decoys, Hasykos. Their peculiar faster-than-light capabilities are also giving them a tactical advantage."

The shields flared as a nuclear missile hit. Her hands gripped the side of the throne the Hasykos was bracing, her knees bending and her body tensing to keep itself upright as more missiles hit. Seeing a small cut on her arm her fist clenched as her eyes icily glared at the Goa'uld.

The battle had been in their favor. 'In their favor' in that her two ships were still almost completely undamaged and the Colonial warships were suffering but they were still very much intact and completely operational, firing again and again.

"The traitor's death gliders are continuing to flee," a Dashmed Guardsman reported. His voice maintained a cool detachment to the situation. He had every confidence one of his god's trusted lieutenants would yet carry the forces of Sokar to victory. "Our death gliders are being enveloped by the enemy missiles and sustaining heavy losses, my lord."

Rhadmet, slumped forward as the battle began in gross anticipation of a swift victory, pushed himself back and sat high atop the throne. The golden throne, stylized in the early era was utilitarian and accented with sleek, round lines and no hard right angles. The back, seat, and arm rest had crimson cushions sprinkled with gray. One arm rest had a small glowing red plate for synchronization between the mind of the _Ha'tak_ commander and the _Ha'tak_ itself. Rhadmet, using his kara kesh, could see the battle unfold before him.

"Order the gliders to continue firing on the traitors and sholva," he ordered in a dark, synthesized voice. His eyes flashed. "Bring us around and concentrate fire on the enemy warships. We will show the Colonial _dar'cha_ the penalty for defying their gods."

"Hasykos," Sacmis protested, "if we do not support the gliders they will be massacred. We've already lost our _Al'kesh_ screens-"

The chin of her master rose. "An acceptable sacrifice."

Sacmis mentally ticked off the losses; the _Al'kesh_ destroyed and nearly all the death gliders reduced to nothing but floating and burning debris and barely any losses on the enemy. Their own bombers and fighters had opened up at extreme range with missiles which had closed faster than any other they'd encountered from races without energy weapons.

Goa'uld did not use such primitive weapons. Not only were they below them they were also more resource and maintenance intensive. Building missiles would require teaching the Jaffa had to care for them. Sacrilege.

But Sacmis took special note that a race of inferiors had almost effortlessly wiped out two out of the three ships of war the Goa'uld used to attack their enemies. How much of their success could be due to Nizsim's trickery and deceit? She was unsure.

Part of her, the primal part which every Goa'uld was subject and beholden to wanted to blame all of the loses on the traitor. She knew that was impossible. Even the traitor's actions could not tip the battle in such a way.

"Their electronic warfare capabilities are more advanced than what we have encountered by other primitives," she calmly pointed out. Her nostrils flared and her chin dug down slightly towards her chest. Sacmis could feel the hot air from her nostrils, heated by the fire burning in anger inside of her. She would sacrifice a million gliders for her lord and master on Delmak… if the sacrifice was needed. But this? "We should have supported our gliders, Hasykos. Whatever hyperspace technology they use to… jump around like-"

"Like cowards, Salatis," Rhadmet finished, swiping his hand at a narrow downward angle to end her protest. "Like cowards. And heretics who defy gods. The gliders are meaningless in this fight now. They have launched all of theirs to engage ours. Our objectives are their mother ships. We can engage and destroy those…" he made a brushing gesture with his hand, "those ineffective insects when we have finished with their mother ships."

Missiles slammed into the shields of _Heirkropolis. _The deck vibrated under the strain of energy feedback coursing through the shield generators. Sacmis looked over; the generators were still colored blue. They were safe, shields still up, for now.

"We should withdraw and reassess-"

Rhadmet slammed his fist into his throne and startled even his Dashmed Guard. Two of the crimson-armored Necropolis Guard stepped forward, the one at the navigation console looked over his shoulder, casting a worried glance at his master before he straightened, realized he was staring at gods, and quickly turned back.

"_We_ will do no such thing. If you wish it, Sacmis, you may flee on our reserve _Al'kesh_ and if you so desire it explain to Lord Sokar how a coward was able to achieve command. Perhaps your victories were won by the sweat of others?" The muscles in his jaw clenched and loosened. Rhadmet's lips parted and he slowly looked at her as the battle moved into a short lull. He leaned in close. "Do it." She took a step back and lowered her eyes to the deck. "Hm…."

Sacmis hid her anger, folding her arms and stepping back another step until she could more clearly see the navigational data on the main screen. Plasma fire incinerated a salvo of conventional and nuclear warheads before they impacted the shields and she could see the Hasykos regain his confidence. His battle plan was still foolish and so typical of the incompetent.

The angered _Salatis_ looked back to her two Dashmed Guard, narrowing her eyes, silently warning them. They made contact with those glowing eyes and quickly cast their own to the deck, their grips tightening around their staff weapons until their knuckles were white.

The Jaffa on the left, in red plated armor, was the commander of her loyal guard aboard the _Ha'tak_. Hai'tar kept his eyes locked forward, glancing around the _pel'tak _from time to time, always focusing on the Necropolis Guard. The Necropolis Guard in the _pel'tak_ were from the personal guard of Sokar.

The enhanced perception of Sacmis noticed her commander reach under the plated armor, towards his flank, and twist. A small grin followed on her lips. She nodded at her trusted Jaffa and his second.

Suddenly, the ship's shields flared violently and the decks shook. The groans of energy projectors straining under intense fire to keep the shields active, to protect their sacred mother ship, were audible throughout the ship. Lights flared as automatic systems rerouted power from every nonessential system to the shields.

A second explosion almost sent everyone to their knees.

The _Ha'tak_ lost acceleration, coasting in space, as the naquadah generators and computer control systems tried to balance the delicate push-pull of shunting power from engines to shields for defense and shields to engines for maneuverability. It was not working.

"Our engines and shield have been disabled, Hasykos," the Jaffa at the tactical console reported.

"The Colonial mother ships have launched additional fighter craft, my lord. They number two dozen," the bald Guardsman at sensors stated in a harsh baritone over the quieter Jaffa manning the tactical console.

On the main view screen the image changed. Half a dozen small circular blips, each representing four of their larger fighter craft rapidly accelerated and disappeared.

"Use thrusters and bring the ship about immediately," Rhadmet ordered, "and present our ventral-"

The ship shook violently and Rhadmet plunged his kara kesh into a command console on his throne. Sacmis subtly moved over to the throne. Her kara kesh wirelessly interfaced with the console in read-only mode and allowed her mind to process the information… bleed through energy from the nuclear strikes had torn through the hull plating in section nineteen through thirty-one, compartments one through seven, ventral. A direct strike to a dorsal pylon had destroyed power relays to fully a third of the staff canons on the dorsal aspect of the secondary hull.

The small vibrations and distinctive sounds of the staff canons could be heard in the _pel'tak_ as they unleashed a ruinous furry on the far out Colonial ships. The large orbs quickly faded to pin pricks and then nothingness as they raced through space. Those which made contact with the enemy ships flared once more like a brilliant light show.

Heretics would die. The Hasykos would avenge the loss of his facility. The death gliders and _Al'kesh_sacrificed would be replaced on arrival back on Delmak… Lord Sokar would great Rhadmet on his feet.

There was a moment when everything seemed to stop. For Sacmis, Rhadmet, their personal guard, everyone aboard the attack ship. Then a shock and a push far more violent than the first ripped through the ship. The Jaffa navigator braced himself as his knees gave way. The two Necropolis Guard who had been ready to remove Sacmis from the bridge slammed into a bulkhead but their staff weapons, elegantly placed, kept them from falling.

Sacmis used her superior agility to redirect her body weights on tensing and relaxing legs, keeping herself upright and poised like a statue.

The ship master of _Herikropolis_, _her_ ship, wanted to lash out and break the neck of the Hasykos. She could see the damage indicators looming at the tactical consoles…

The glider bay was open to space, venting atmosphere, and she could see on the mother ships external cameras a long gash, fifty meters from tip to tip, like a black and embarrassing scare running through the lower armor at the base of the pyramid. Two bodies floated past and were vaporized on the shields which didn't even flare from contact. Their deaths were just two more Jaffa in a millennium long battle. Unremarkable.

"_Salatis _Gilkan is pursuing the Colonials, Hasykos," tactical reported. "_Atat_ is reporting that their ships have suffered damage from our strikes. Many are venting atmosphere and their armor on multiple sections of their warships is weakened."

"Excellent!" Rhadmet exclaimed. "_Atat_ is to press the attack."

"Hasykos, we should pull back _Atat_ and wait until our engines and shields are repaired." Sacmis protested.

Rhadmet ignored her.

She accessed another camera in the engineering compartment. Poisonous engines fumes were being funneled into the compartment. Jaffa in masks and full body suits were attempting to repair the exhaust pipes. Already there were Jaffa, laying dead, their symbiotes hanging outside their bellies, and their skin blistered and red from the explosion which had damaged the exhaust system.

"My lord, one of their warships is destroyed," Rhadmet's Necropolis Guard reported.

"Show me," he demanded.

On the monitor the image changed from a tactical display of the battle, one of red and yellow icons, to the brilliant, illuminating glow of a yellow fireball and gray cloud. One of the enemy ships, the one with guns on its ventral and dorsal aspects running from stem to stern, with the launch bay in the center, was split in five.

The stern, a large hunk of floating, burning debris nearly three hundred meters long exploded as a finishing plasma blast from_ Atat_, fired once more. The massive engines of the Colonial warship blew apart. Small little attack craft were engulfed in flame and debris. The shockwave pushed out small chunks of metal, blackened hull plating, and human bodies in a monstrous sphere at high speeds.

Everything would float in space, forever tumbling and twisting, until something caught them… a planet or a star.

The Guardsman at sensors turned, bowing his head quickly and looking up. The older Jaffa hid a proud smile at the small victory. "Our sensors are detecting heavy damage on a second ship of the same class, my lord. Moderate damage to the third. The two larger warships have suffered damage to their engines and hull and are venting atmosphere." He threw his shoulders back and his armored gleamed in the light of the burning torches of the _pel'tak_.

"See!" Rhadmet shouted. "You dared doubt us!"

Rhadmet stood up from his throne, his two personal Guard stepping forward and their boots clanking on the metal deck as they followed. Sacmis stood three paces behind them, hovering over the sensor console.

"The death gliders and _Al'kesh_ have been destroyed and the remaining ships are launching massed attacks at _Atat_," she reported. The Jaffa at the console looked at her from the corner of his eyes and was stunned to have her looking at him, eyes glowing. "Move," she commanded. The Jaffa's movements were so fast he might have been capable of hyperspace flight. Sacmis jammed her kara kesh into the glowing blue plate. She could feel the tickle and the cold of the neural connections between the kara kesh and the console's data. "They are surrounding _Atat_… my other ship is reporting significant damaged…" she growled.

The Haskyos took personal authority of the battle. "No… they will not be able to harm here. See, they are in close, unable to maneuver effectively." The image of the _Atat_ was clear on the view screen, which cycled to the Colonial warships.

Fire was engulfing the shields of _Atat_. Then she blew up.

The _pel'tak_ was silent. Even the Necropolis Guard were stunned, their head and eyes facing the view screen, their stoicism forgotten in the face of such inferiors having destroyed one of their lord's vessels.

Sacmis was furious.

Immediately everyone in the _pel'tak_ was almost forced to the ground as missiles began slamming into her undefended ship. Through the view window she could see plasma canons firing at the missiles and small tan-colored ships firing their tiny missiles, jostling her mighty ship.

Sacmis pressed her _kara kesh_ into a console and downloaded the data. Turrets were failing, outer compartments were being depressurized, armor was buckling.

"Launch death gliders!" Rhadmet yelled. "Destroy them!"

The ship master glared back at him but couldn't stop him from launching a flight of gliders which was promptly destroyed and had only taken one of those small gunships in turn.

The rage and anger flowing through her, amplified by untold millennium of genetic knowledge and hate passed on from one generation of Goa'uld to the other fought to escape. Her nostrils flared and her fingers flexed, her knuckles cracked. The small orb on her _kara kesh_ began to glow. Her hand began to slowly rise.

The Hasykos stepped down from his throne. "Salatis! You will continue the fight. I… will report to Lord Sokar in person and report your failing." He glared at her, his eyes golden-white. "If you have any will to serve our Lord you will destroy as many of them as you can before you succumb to your incompetence."

Sacmis could feel the bile flowing from Rhadmet. In a moment of weakness she didn't hate him. She pitied him. He truly believed it was her fault his attack plan, his foolish maneuvers and incompetent strategy had failed.

Rhadmet's voice was able to sound powerful and even, despite his fear. It was one benefit of being a Goa'uld; they were too arrogant to show fear. Usually… "Jaffa! You will keep _Salatis_ Sacmis here until she and you die for your god or she prevails. Sokar's Will shall determine if she deserve to live or die here."

"Hai'tar!" She barked, her eyes burning like the pits of Netu once had directly at the Hasykos.

Her two Jaffa leveled their staff weapons. One of Rhadmet's Dashmed Guard grabbed his and fired. It's plasma bolt flared on her Guard's shields. Her Guards fired and in less than a second killed Rhadmet's Guard.

Sacmis activated her shield and used the kinetic throw abilities of the _kara kesh_ to launch Rhadmet off his feet and into the Necropolis Guard who were leveling their staffs to fire on her and her Guard.

She reached down and grabbed Rhadmet be the neck, squeezing. He struggled under her but she balled her free hand into a fist, cocked it back, and smashed it into his face, breaking his nose and bloodying his eye. Violently, primitively, in an act unfit for a Goa'uld of her rank she hit him a second time and a third until his face was black and bloody. Sacmis made sure he was disabled and unconscious by holding her _kara kesh_ above him and pressing it to his forehead.

Rhadmet's eyes rolled back and his body convulsed.

She threw him to the ground like trash. He hit a bulkhead and slumped on his side, blooding seeping from the cuts on his face.

His breathing was shallow and weak.

Standing over the two Necropolis Guard her own personal Guard had leveled their staffs at them. They had their hands up in surrender- mock surrender, for Necropolis Guard would never capitulate, only bide their time.

"Rhadmet did not act in the interest of our lord," Sacmis proclaimed, turning to face the two red-armored Necropolis Guardsmen. Rhadmet's blood was on her face making her look vicious. "This battle is lost. As Necropolis Guard you have a duty to Lord Sokar. You have seen his incompetence," she pointed at Rhadmet and flicked a loose strand of hair back, "and you have seen how he was willing to flee after condemning two of Lord Sokar's prized vessels to destruction. His incompetence has led to our deaths. But if you join me we will return to our Lord and tell him of Rhadmet's… _betrayal_. We will then gather a fleet and destroy these people who would _dare_ defile our Lord Sokar's property and Jaffa. We are all at his mercy. We are _not_ at the mercy of that incompetent Hasykos. Stand." She commanded.

Hai'tar and his second took a step back, allowing the two Necropolis Guard to stand. The imposing men had height, weight, everything on the Goa'uld woman. Yet she stood close to them, no fear, no intimidation. She pulsed her eyes with a gold-white flash.

Sacmis extended her hand, surprising the two Necropoluis Guardsmen. hey looked at it, studied it like it was some strange and foreign substance belonging in a lab.

"I offer my hand only this once. Take it and live. Take it and live to serve Lord Sokar and avenge your fallen brothers."

* * *

The air was ionized, heavy. Environmental controls were failing, the air was stuffy and the lights dim. The _Ha'tak_ was running on emergency power and many of the passageways were heavy with death and smoke as two opposing forces struggled to take either take control of the mighty warship or keep its secrets and power from slipping through their fingers…

Lt. Stagna pressed her PAR-56B bull pup battle rifle into her shoulder and slowly pulled the trigger. Time slowed as the muzzle flashed and the gun kicked, its energy flowing into her shoulder as she resisted its attempt to push her back. She felt the pressure as the butt compacted against her armor.

Sparks flew from their chest armor as a burst of seven millimeter armor piercing rounds ripped into a Jaffa. A second burst stabbed at the chest of a second Jaffa, ripping into a human's most vital of organs. An errant staff weapon cracked as dead fingers reflexively contracted. An orange-yellow bolt plowed through the air, smacking into a bulkhead with a thunderous clap and a puff of smoke.

She watched as the two Jaffa down the corridor fell back, staff weapons falling from their hands, legs kicked up. They went down hard with one groaning, clutching his stomach, before going limp and becoming still.

The quiet and darkness lasted only a moment.

Ares demanded more blood. To be paid by the Jaffa.

A third Jaffa leaned too far out. His bravery was expertly and quickly repaid by a Colonial Marine determined to follow her orders; _take the Ha'tak and kill all hostiles_.

Sergeant Eron Revita. A young woman from Aquaria who hadn't been much good at anything- be it school, relationships, family, or holding a job- had found her calling at twenty-three and joined the Colonial Marine Force. She had a knack for detail and a certain prophiciency in firearms and killing which made her either very sexy or very scary and maybe a little of both.

She knew her orders. They were short and sweet. Just like she liked it.

Revita saw the movement; the Jaffa's darkened body was outlined by her tac goggles as his heat signature increased, no longer blocked by the thick metal struts bulging out from the bulkheads. She squeezed the heavy trigger and felt the kick of her weapon and put two rounds from her CAAS-99 into a Jaffa, the LEAP rounds penetrating the bullet resistant chain mail and lodging in his shoulder joint and side. An instant later a muffled explosion, a cry of pain, and an arm and body were separated.

Blood pooled on the ground as the Jaffa tumbled to the ground, shaking, eyes rolling back, as his body lost the precious crimson life blood and went into shock.

The CAAS-99, combat automatic assault shotgun, was designed to fight Cylons. It fired an armor penetrating slug with a proximity sensor that detected when it was inside a Cylon. A small, low explosive charge was then activated to shreds electronics, gears, and wires.

It worked even better on humans.

Her platoon LT put a mercy round in the chest of the Jaffa.

It wasn't _that_ easy for the Marines, though.

Stagna's knee pads were already covered in blood. Colonial blood.

Private Kendra Kiz had been hit in the stomach with a double staff blast, tearing through all layers of her armor and spilling her guts onto the deck and the back of Stagna's calf and thigh fifty meters and two corridors and a T-junction back.

A report from one of her platoon's other squads had reported two casualties on the other side of the pyramid super structure. Luckily no deaths. She'd checked her command circuits ten minutes ago and seen the progress of the other squadrons and platoons; they were all pressing on to their objectives. No one had suffered any heavy casualties. Yet.

The young lieutenant blew a bead of sweat away as it threatened to drip into her eye, sting the sensitive organ and distract her from the fight. Twenty minutes ago she'd been cold as the Raptor had begun to cut into the _Ha'tak_'s hull. Frak, the temperature in here wasn't even that bad compared to certain parts of Leonis…

Gods! Her parents wanted her to be a lawyer, work in the palace! The hours would have been just as long but the pay ten times better and no homicidal, fundamentalist aliens believing in crazy false gods would be shooting at her! Whatever… her finger tensed and two, three, and four rounds struck the back of the corridor, a lightning storm of sparks erupted from the golden bulkheads. A Jaffa who'd dared to try and shoot at them was now being suppressed.

She narrowed her eyes and lowered her chin, tilting her head. Focusing she increased the magnification on her tac goggles and lined up a shot… _crack!_

The Jaffa was hit in the foot. He staggered out, his staff canon loose in his hand he tried to fire.

Two Marines, one on the left and behind Stagna and one on the right, Sgt. Revita, covered by the protective metal of the bulkhead opened fire. Half a dozen bullets and three LEAP slugs turned the Jaffa's inside into mush. His death spasm was short.

He fell like a rag doll tossed away without a care.

The corporal to her left, Ian Revel, a twenty-one year old nerdy-looking sort of guy, nodded as she signaled with a quick wave. The pocket of his combat vest tore open as he pulled out a small ball with a translucent strip running down the equator. He tossed it underhand and it rolled until it hit the bulkhead at the far end of the junction.

Corporal Revel brought up his left forearm in front of his chest, slung his rifle, and used his free right hand and index finger to swivel the little ball- a 'ball camera' the Marines used to make sure little nooks and crannies were clear.

Jaffa were heard yelling, but they stopped when it didn't explode and its movements were too quick and jerky for them to target and too near their fellow Jaffa to not risk blowing one of their compatriot's feet off.

The actual name of the 'ball camera' was a Translucent Technologies Model 101 Self-Powered Spherical Reconnaissance Attack Camera. While it was nicknamed the 'ball camera' the Marines also gave it the slang name of 'FU' camera- frak you.

Revel was an adept user when it came to technology. He loved the little toys the CMF let him play with. The little gadgets he got to use for boarding actions were fun but he was in his element tinkering with the stuff the CMF used for ground engagements.

He wiggled his index finger on the small digital control wheel, a little red circle that had popped into the corner of his wrist comp and the ball camera moved forward and quickly turned in an oblong shape, rushing passed the foot of a confused Jaffa.

Revel sent the data to Stagna's wrist comp which relayed the information to her goggle's HUD. She silently cursed at the heat signatures; six Jaffa to the left and four to the right. Ambush.

The corporal detonated the FU camera in between two Jaffa as they leveled their staffs to destroy it.

Smoke and debris was blasted from the right side of the junction, in front of the Marines, and over to the other side.

Little _plop, plop_ sounds were blood and guts and tissue falling to the deck.

The Jaffa had already tried to ambush her three times. Two of her men were incapacitated and were ringed back to the _tel'tak_ went shock grenades knocked them out. With Pvt. Kiz dead she was down three Marines, leaning her seven.

Stagna signaled to move out and the Marines cautiously stepped forward, leapfrogging from bulkhead to bulkhead, covering each other. At the T-intersection two Marines threw flash bangs. A third Marine threw an HE incendiary grenade but it lodged between a bulkhead and a Jaffa, tearing the one Jaffa to pieces but the other five survived.

Two marines leaned to the left and opened fire, hitting on Jaffa wearing red armor and sending him staggering back. Somehow he survived, threw his hand out to brace himself, and with a staff weapon flailing fired.

Tyche must have been smiling on the Marine. He was the heavy weapons Marine and had one of the larger anti-Cylon rifles each Marine squad was equipped with, a large HA-44. The way he'd been holding it had saved him; most of the staff weapon's blast had been absorbed by the rifle which made it non-functional but saved the Marine.

"Frak!"

"Medic!" Another Marine yelled, pulling his wounded comrade back from fire.

All fraking hell broke loose.

Two Jaffa, coming out of the smoke like devils, stepped forward in red armor, streaking randomly with black, with spikes on their shoulders and horns on their helmets. They lowered their staff weapons and began firing, spraying the passageway left to right and back again, using their rapidly firing plasma weapons to force the Colonial Marines back.

Stagna staggered back and raised her rifle and fired at the two figures she knew to be the feared Necropolis Guard. Teal'c had spoken of them in their briefing a week ago; the Necropolis were as deadly and proficient as the palace guard which had once protected the Supreme System Lord Ra, the Jackal Guard.

The Necropolis Guardsmen moved forward, firing steadily. Three Jaffa in red-silver armor moved cautiously to the side of the Guard, letting their more fearsome and experienced brothers take the lead.

"Fall back!" Stagna ordered, snatching a flash bang from her vest and tossing it as she grabbed the wounded Marine. She backtracked quickly and the bright white flash and loud _pop_ sound did nothing to slow the Necropolis Guard.

She did hear the moan of Jaffa and the synthesized voices from the helmet speakers of the Guard as they cursed their brothers from inside their helmets.

Trying to give her Marines an extra second she quickly leaned out and popped off a burst at the closest Guard. What she saw just about forced her jaw to slack and hit the ground.

The disbelief had gripped her. She wanted to stare, like a passerby and a car wreck. Only her training which forced her body to unconsciously seek cover back behind the bulkhead saved her as a plasma bolt streaked through the air where her head had been just a moment before.

A reddish-orange haze appeared around the forward Guard. The bullets seemed to go through this haze and hit, but didn't penetrate the armor. She'd never seen this before, not in real life, but she watched enough movies and shows to know what that was; a fraking energy shield.

The fraking Necropolis Guard had a fraking cock sucking energy shield! Her mind raced… her bullets still penetrated but lost so much velocity they couldn't penetrate… frak!

She didn't bother to aim but held out her rifle and fired and she back stepped rapidly, using a near photographic memory to hop over the body of a slain Jaffa without looking back.

The Marines quickly fell back to their previous position.

"They have fraking energy shields of some fraking kind!" The lieutenant yelled, wide eyed and almost shaking. This really wasn't all that fraking fair.

"Squad Alpha-Zero Two request support… squad alpha-zero-two requesting heavy support… they have fraking energy shields, over!" Corporal Revel squawked into his wireless.

"_Roger Alpha-Zero-Two… assault team delta-three incoming… ETA sixty seconds."_

The Marines were using the glider bays as a command center. The Raptors which had entered had quickly been converted into command posts staffed by the senior Marine officer from _Gorgon_, since Major Usher was leading the combat element, and his own staff and coordinating the battle from aboard the _Ha'tak_.

Four platoons were assaulting the _Ha'tak_ with a fifth platoon on standby in assault Raptors arrayed around the mother ship. Only three platoons were moving through the ship, the fourth positioned in the glider bay for reinforcements and to secure vital areas. A fast reaction force…

But they needed to be faster. A lot faster.

"We need them now!" Stagna shouted. "Where the frak did they come from?"

"Ball cameras work on IR, sir…! Maybe that armor is some sort of IR camo or something…" Ravel shouted back over the bursts of plasma fire.

Stagna sneered, leaned out and fired. Two bullets hit the rightmost Guardsman in the neck. Only two orange-yellow-red sparks gave any indication he'd been hit.

The two Necropolis Guard were advancing from staggered positions and again with the Jaffa coming up behind… the flash bangs doing little to the Jaffa warriors. Teal'c had warned them that flash bangs would only disorient a Jaffa for a short period, ten, fifteen seconds at most. The prim'tah ritual added more than a mere pouch. It changed a Jaffa's physiology to make them almost super-soldiers in their ability to resist damage.

Private Durn signaled he was throwing a grenade and everyone leaned back. The grenade exploded two seconds after being tossed and the corridor quieted. Stagna threw out a small camera and it slid out ten meters. It spun quickly, she saw two Jaffa laying on the ground but a boot heel smashed it.

Lance Corporal Wesin, the wounded Marine, was propped up against a bulkhead, out of the line of fire and down the starboard-side corridor by five or six meters with a Marine medic attending to him. Corporal Frisk covered them both.

Revin, Stagna, and Durn all opened fire. The shield on the Necropolis Guard flared and flickered under withering firepower which could take down an entire squad of even the feared Cylon Annihilators.

The Lords of Kobol must have been watching over them.

One lucky round, one special shot from someone made it through at the exact moment, the millisecond, when the shield flared and lost integrity and when it was regained.

A bullet hit him in the side, tearing into the armor at such a close range, and the leftmost Guardsman collapsed. The second roared and fired back. He snatched a grenade from his belt and cocked his arm back to throw. Stagna and Revin fired as he tried to throw, knocking his aim. Like Stagna's earlier grenade it hit one of the jutting angled extension from the _Ha'tak_ bulkhead and exploded almost harmlessly.

A dull gray liquid splashed over the deck and bulkhead and an instant later ignited in a bright flash of white-yellow- and green fire.

The Necropolis Guardsman advancing threw a small fire storm with flames that stabbed and danced out from their source like they were sentient beings, scorching whatever they touched.

The crackling fire raged for a few seconds, turning the top layers of the deck into molten slag, and the Guardsman just kept coming, firing and firing, invulnerable. The Colonials continued to fire but the Guardsman saw an opening when two were forced to reload.

A shock grenade fell to her feet and a bright light and deafening sound was the last thing Afina Stagna heard.

* * *

Sacmis looked sullenly at the fallen Jaffa, her nose twitching at the foul smell of death and blood all around her. The smoke in the corridor, the residual heat was sweltering. With some poise she wiped sweat from her forehead and looking at the sweat on her fingertips, flicked it away.

So many had died this day who didn't need to. Thousands of Jaffa were nothing more than dust for solar winds to carry into the depths of space, forever forgotten. Debris from a mighty _Ha'tak_ would forever hang in this void. The shattered remains of two glider wings and _Al'kesh_ bombers would be soon forgotten.

The Goa'uld's nose wrinkled at the disgusting smell of death around her. Space battles were meant to be quick and clean. To be boarded, for her flagship to suffer such an indignity was a slap in the face.

One of the Necropolis Guardsman lay on the deck, bleeding, unconscious, and beyond saving by his symbiote. Still, Hai'tar waved for one of her Dashmed Guard to check him, waving a small device over him in dulled from a blue to green to black. The Jaffa's heart had stopped. He was dead.

A pity, she thought, as her eyes ran up and down his red-black armor and suddenly halting on the small jagged hole in the side.

"Salatis, the prisoners are awakening…" one of her Dashmed Guard informed her.

"Watch the corridors," she said quietly, calmly, hiding her apprehension.

These enemies had rampaged through her _Ha'tak_, killing many of her experienced crew. They were still rampaging through the vessel. She had little time.

She had to reach the _Al'kesh_ docked in a secondary bay. But the ship had suffered damage, her path was blocked and she was forced to go down many inconvenient corridors, moving forward and backward, up and down to clear debris.

She stepped over a pool of blood. There were traces of blood and dirt on her armor, unfitting for a 'goddess' but unimportant at the moment.

Sacmis considered it lucky, a blessing perhaps, that none of her Dashmed were among the fallen. She, a group of Jaffa, her Dashmed Guard, and the two Necropolis Guardsmen who say the madness of the Hasykos and had joined her had stumbled upon the firefight…

Salatis Sacmis nodded to the Jaffa and flicked her wrist for him to step back. Without a moment's hesitation the towering Jaffa released the half-awake, moaning female. The Goa'uld stood over her in a shoulder-width stance, head cocked to the left shoulder, studying her.

The human's eyes snapped open and her hand went for a pistol. Sacmis, even from her standing position, was much too fast. And she knew what the human would do. The Goa'uld grabbed the wrist of the human and in one tightening motion, squeezed. There were two cracks and the woman yelped in pain. With her free hand Sacmis bent down further and scooped her up by the armor vest. The human woman almost fell out of the vest, her chin and buckles and the arm holes digging into her armpits kept her in.

"Human… do you know who I am? Do you know what I am?"

The human, a 'Colonial' answered in a strange but eerily familiar language. Sacmis bobbed her head back and glowed her eyes. The human was frightened and she barred her teeth in a joyful grin as the human tried to wiggle free.

The Colonial kicked her but a human, an injured and disoriented human, was not enough to harm a Goa'uld.

"Do you speak our language?"

Again a sputtered reply in that same unknown but familiar language but even with the language barrier Sacmis could feel the hatred in her tone and the bile and anger. The woman was seething with rage and Sacmis only brought her closer in, her feet still dangling off the deck, Sacmis showing no signs of stress or strain. They were almost nose to nose.

The Goa'uld closed her eyes, an impish grin forming on her lips. Her _kara kesh_ glowed and she brought up her hand. "_Jaffa, tar set, kree_." She handed the Colonial to the nearest Dashmed Guard.

The _kara kesh_ pulsed orange and the woman struggled. The Jaffa tightened his grip on the woman's biceps, pinning her back against his stomach as he forced her to her knees. Sacmis curled her fingers around the underside of the woman's helmet and yanked it off, her head jerking after it, and tossed the black-gray helmet back behind her without a care.

The Colonial's short brown hair invoked a snicker from the Goa'uld, thinking the woman appeared manly.

The Goa'uld ship master looked into the emerald eyes of the woman, glaring shards of green ice back until the eyes suddenly rolled back in her head and her head slumped forward. A Jaffa tapped her with a zat'nik'tel and she was startled back away, groggy and groaning.

Sacmis held the _kara kesh_ ribbon device to the woman's head and small beams of light, flowing like water through the air, moved back and forth between Sacmis's hand device and the Marine…

What she saw… she used every ounce, all her will to keep her hand steady, her face arrogant. She hid the surprise, the fear, the dread with every fiber of her being. She dug deep… deep into the woman's mind and the secrets it held… terrifying secrets…

The Jaffa's head next to her exploded, blasting her face with bones, flesh, and blood. She staggered back, dropping the Marine.

The Necropolis Guardsman rushed to her and threw her back. Her Dashmed Guard made a wall and leveled their staff weapons. The Necropolis Guardsman stepped forward, his shield flashing as bullets hit. The loud cracks of gunfire rang echoed at an almost deafening level off the bulkheads. With either courage or stupidity running through his veins he lifted a Colonial Marine as a human shield while firing one handed his staff weapon.

"Salatis! This way!" Hai'tar yelled, wrapping his fingers around her elbow and yanking, pulling at his commander like no Jaffa should. Her safety was his priority. If she felt he defiled her with his touch he would gladly pay the price later, as long as she was safe.

He pushed Salatis Sacmis into the corridor with the dead Jaffa, the dead Necropolis Guardsman, as he watched the second fall. The shields of the Guardsman flickered and failed. The human he was holding had pushed himself away, safe. The humans at the far end of the corridor were using rifles larger than any he'd seen, almost the size of staff weapons. The Guardsman staggered and was blasted off his feet. He landed at Hai'tar's feet with a loud _ompf_; three holes the size of fists in his chest and one in his symbiote pouch.

A pool of blood, stretching from one side of the corridor to the other had already been spilled from the Jaffa's destroyed body, darkening the golden deck in a dull and dim crimson.

The feared Necropolis Guard, the elite of Sokar's forces, were down, killed. Guardsmen who were feared for their prowess, their courage and stamina and near invulnerability both laid dead. Hai'tar snarled, firing once more in defiance and forcing the advancing humans to duck and take cover. Smartly he retreated as the Colonial Marines leveled their rifles at him and others appeared, undoubtedly summoned by their communication equipment. He vanished behind the bulkhead before they could fire.

He had to protect Sacmis and see her to the _Al'kesh_ in the auxiliary bay.

* * *

The corridors were dark, almost pitch black. There were no sounds, no movements. Everything was quiet, still, dead.

The fighting had been brutal. In the path of the two squads led by Captain Aeilos Ophion, third in line to the throne of Leonis, a trail of bodies had been left in their wake. In thirty minutes of brutal fighting they'd clear the deck above the _pel'tak_, having ringed into a secondary ring room one deck up and then descended to their current level by the emergency ladders.

The intelligence from Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill had been good. Except for a few dead ends and wrong corridors, the SG Teams had been right in their description of the routes to the _pel'tak_.

Over a hundred Colonial Marines had assaulted the _Ha'tak_, moving in from the glider bay, two separate ring chambers, and half a dozen separate ingress points on the hull. Most of the crew was dead, dying, or cut off in the secondary hull between blast doors, depressurized compartments and corridors, and the primary pyramid hull of the _Ha'tak_.

Captain Ophion looked back over his shoulder and across the corridor to a short, stocky Marine with a dried line of blood barely visible under the edge of his combat goggles. The dim blue light from the goggle's HUD was barely visible, even a mere two meters away, and the Marine's face was hidden in shadow. Ophion saw just enough of a nod to confirm that Master Sergeant Chase Marcius and his fire team were ready.

The Leonan officer breathed in deeply and slowly exhaled. His hand went up and he leaned, just barely, over the bulkhead and hit the release for the hatch. Quickly, like stone grinding on stone, the massive golden hatch lifted and clanged to a halt in the recessed deck head alcove.

Marcius threw a flash bang into the compartment, waited, and when the flash and smoke cleared rushed in with three other Marines. With a professional's speed and precision they cleared the small compartment within twenty seconds, checking behind crates and looking up and down and into every nook and cranny capable of hiding a man.

"_Ja kas, se'tah!"_ They heard someone yell. A gruff voice, deep and full of anger and rage alerted them to the Jaffa's presence.

"Hold fire!" Marcius yelled.

Captain Ophion rushed into the room, his rifle angled towards the floor but finger and muscles ready to tense and drop this Jaffa.

The Marines fell behind cover, a Jaffa, a black tattoo of a radiating sun on his forehead, standing behind a waist-high container brandishing a knife. The Jaffa snarled, tightening his grip until his fingers were white. He wasn't a Jaffa soldier but a member of the ship's crew. He had a black tunic, tied at the waist with a leather belt, a bag of strange-looking tools hanging onto his thigh. His tunic had a small pocket on the right side, holding what looked like pencils or pens, maybe a computer stylus.

"_Ja kas, se'tah!"_

"We don't have time for this…" Ophion stated, releasing his rifle, feeling its weight as it pulled at his tactical sling, and pulling out a pistol.

He leveled it at the Jaffa's chest before the brutish, suicidal alien could charge. He got one step around the crates before Ophion fired.

Two small rods shot out of the pistol and buried in the skin of the Jaffa. A blue-white arc of electricity ignited and the Jaffa convulsed, dropping the knife, and fell to the floor, his hands flexing and his teeth barred as electricity surged through his muscles.

"Clear, sir," the NCO reported, relaxing his grip on his CAAS-99. He took out a small transmitter from his vest and slapped it on the back of a crate, marking the room with a code three for 'armory.' "Another fraking prisoner…? We've got a few now, sir."

Ophion stepped forward, looking over the snarling Jaffa as his Marines finished securing his hands with plastic cuffs. "He wasn't a threat… and by the looks of it he's some tech or something." The captain pulled his combat goggles forward and wiped some sweat then repositioned them on his nose bridge. This was prisoner number eight from his two squads alone, only about a fifth the number of Jaffa he and his men had already killed.

He'd lost two Marines already.

Master Sergeant Marcius, barely coming up to the captain shoulder, even in full combat load, stopped and watched over the Jaffa with him. "I reported in. A few other squads are taking heavy fire sir, on the other side on the primary hull and down two decks. We're cut off from them, though our FRE Marines are moving in for assistance."

Three Marines were already searching through the containers, opening the lids. There was an assortment of staff weapons, zat'nik'tel pistols, and various grenades- or what the Marines assumed to be grenades from their briefings.

"We've still got an objective to complete, Master Sergeant… they'll do their jobs, we just gotta do ours and let FRE do theirs if someone's in trouble."

He tracked the Jaffa and he was led away, the butt of a Marine's rifle jammed into the small of his back, shoving him forward. Aeilos Ophion, could only shake his head at how he managed to always find trouble. Snorting at his memories on Leonis and the shit he got into there, none of it was even close to being on an alien ship light years from home.

"Alright… let's move." Ophion tapped his rifle reassuringly, giving one last look to the armor they were vacating, and stepped off, ready for war.

* * *

Major Ramos breathed in the cool air, pressing his back to the hard bulkhead, his armor making a soft sound as he rubbed against the metal. The lights in the passageway were dimmed and in some areas smoke lingered from failing environmental scrubbers.

The Marines shifted, leaning back and felt Colonel O'Neill's left shoulder pressed into his back as the Colonel raised his Colonial-issued rifle a little higher, his gut telling him to get ready. Across from them Major Andrew Usher, bent on one knee, had his rifle sighted and pressed firmly in the crook of his shoulder, slowly breathing in and out… and fired twice as some Jaffa tried to run across the corridor.

The Jaffa yelped, was knocked off his feet sideways, and fell onto the deck; arms and feet splayed wide, two holes in his flank, just above the kidneys. Blood pooled rapidly and spread far on the deck.

Teal'c looked over at O'Neill and raised an eyebrow, giving the man a small nod of approval at Usher's shot. The imposing Jaffa was positioned a few meters back from Usher and leaning over a Marine woman, making her small stature almost dwarf-like compared to Teal'c. Even the rifles and auto-shotguns the Colonials were armed with were puny, pathetic even, compared to the large rifle they'd given Teal'c; a matte black rifle with gray finished, similar to a Barret M82 but about a third shorter they called a Hades Armory R-44A.

It was a heavy rifle that could pierce just about anything and separate a guy's head from his shoulders or a torso from legs. Teal'c had been most impressive at what it fired; a 12mm bullet with a small sensor that detected when it had pierced armor which activated a small explosive charge. So far Teal'c had fired it three times, once on a Jaffa and twice on Dashmed Guard, blowing holes the size of basketballs in their guts.

All the Colonial weaponry had been purpose-built and designed to kill Cylons which meant it worked even better on fleshy, meaty target which could feel pain and pass out from blood loss. The development of the metal and composites necessary for Cylons to function without heavy maintenance had forced a redesign of Colonial weaponry; it tended to be heavy, incendiary, and explosive.

O'Neill breathed in and took a shot at a Jaffa who poked his staff weapon out and fired an un-aimed blast. Two Jaffa stepped out and O'Neill, Usher, and Ramos fired into them, tearing them to pieces before they could fire.

The Colonel's battle rifle, a PAR-58B, kicked back. Its matte black-gray finish and design gave it the image of some sort of bastardize AUG and G36. O'Neill had been impressed with how it handled and fired during practice on _Valkyrie_'s range. The bull pup battle rifle also utilized some sort of powder which allowed it to utilize a smaller a much casing while achieving a velocity nearly four hundred meters per second faster than his M4.

While the weapons were designed to fight Cylons he was glad they weren't using the 'solium' rounds. From what he'd been told those were designed to pierce the front plate of the Cylon's armor but not the back. Then the solium rounds, named after the incendiary within them, would burn the Cylon from the inside out and, in their words 'frak up' its electronics and other vital parts. Used on something made of flesh and blood it'd burn a human from the inside out. It'd be like being shot with white phosphorus.

A second Jaffa's hand appeared and blindly fired his zat'nik'tel, the energy smashing against and dissipating on the bulkheads, harmless after failing to conduct far enough to affect the Colonial or US Marines and Air Force personnel.

Both Ramos and O'Neill were wearing the standard Colonial tactical kits of full body armor covering the front, back, and sides with shoulder, thigh and shin protection. The material was made of a light substance; they'd said some sort of ceramic or carbon fibers, making all the armor thinner and lighter than USAF/USMC issue. Unfortunately it didn't resist Jaffa staff weapons nearly as well as it did bullets.

Both O'Neill and Ramos wanted their teams with them. Despite all this support, support they'd never dreamed of having available any other time, they both still wanted their men with them.

Daniel was with another group of Marines from _Pan_ and _Chios_, coming up and over from the opposite side of the ship.

SG8 was on _Valkyrie_ helping the command staff and advising them to any changes in the battle SG1 and Major Ramos may not be aware of given they were in the thick of the fight.

The problems in communications, that they didn't all speak the same language, prevented more of SG1 and SG8 from joining the CMF in their assault on the _Ha'tak_.

O'Neill had been standing back, letting the CMF do their jobs, and observing them in action. They were well-trained, proficient in boarding and counter-boarding actions based on their history. The little devices and gizmos they used seemed optimized for this type of environment. Their grenades were powerful enough to kill whoever was unfortunate enough to be near them, but not overpowered to cause damage to the ship.

Both he and Ramos loved the CAAS-99 as it tore through Jaffa armor. One of the Marines, a sergeant back on _Valkyrie_ had explained how the firearm worked; a small sensor in the slug detected when it was within an object and then exploded. Even if it missed and went off the explosion wasn't large enough to hurt someone in armor unless they were unlucky. It was maybe the size of a baseball, probably closer to a softball… but if that exploded _inside_ you… O'Neill had seen the demonstration on a mannequin.

The CMF had suffered loses but boarding actions and counter-boarding actions also saw more fatalities in a single engagement than a fight in the countryside or even in an urban environment. The strangeness of the Jaffa weapons, their tenacity and tendency to attack when they should retreat, and generally do unpredictable things had thrown off the CMF. But they learned fast.

O'Neill remembered some wisdom one of his SF instructors had imparted; '_Respect your skilled enemy but fear the shit out of the idiot who'll do something unpredictable and stupid.'_ The learning curve in the last half hour had been steep but the CMF learned fast. The Jaffa were more than willing to take high casualties, do anything to slow them down from suicide charges to fighting to the last man and refusing to surrender.

The Colonial Marines threw two of their little ball cameras into the _pel'tak_, scanning for heat signatures. One of the Marines O'Neill didn't recognize was smiling and waved Major Usher over. Apparently shit-eating grins were a universal constant and O'Neill saw a little twinkle in Usher's eye, like they'd hit the big jackpot and scored it rich.

"Whatca got there, major?" O'Neill whispered over the comm. Usher held up a finger, silently telling him to wait one, and O'Neill rolled his eyes over at Ramos and Teal'c, who was looming over one of the smaller Marines behind Usher like a giant.

The translation software had been loaded into the small computers in the helmets but were on a half-second delay. O'Neill really wanted to take the thing off. He unbuckled the chin strap as a distant consolation.

The Marines rushed in and quickly secured the _pel'tak_.

"Let's go…" Usher uttered, jerking his head to the side and moving at a brisk walk. The Colonial could feel the tension lessen in his men as they reached their objective. "Staff Sergeant, continue securing the deck and set up a perimeter." Usher ordered one of his NCOs who quickly organized an eight-man squad to move out. Andrew Usher stopped behind two Marines whose rifles were pointed down at a man laying on the deck. He grinned back to O'Neill, Teal'c, and Ramos. "Looks like we have a high priority prisoner, Colonel… I think… Teal'c?"

Teal'c moved forward, kneeling, and pushed the man over onto his back. His right hand had been jammed under him but when he was rolled over the _kara kesh_ was plainly visible for all to see. "A Goa'uld…" Teal'c hissed, eyes narrowed at the fancily dressed man which had crossed the line into gaudiness and ostentatious. "By his rank marks this is the Hasykos… the garrison commander of the planet."

O'Neill whistled as Ramos made an approving face, nodding his head.

"Get him up Marines and back to the Raptors. I want him transported back to _Valkyrie_ immediately," usher ordered, voice firm. He pointed and flicked his finger to point to the back of the compartment. He put a hand up to his ear. "This is Marine Actual to _Valkyrie Actual_, over."

Commander Adama's voice was slightly distorted. The _pel'tak _was shielded. "_Valkyrie Actual here, Marine Actual. Report in, over."_

The transmitters in the Marine helmets weren't powerful enough to get to the BSG hundreds of kilometers away through the thick bulkheads and armor plating of the Goa'uld attack ship. Instead it was being transmitted down to the glider bay and the Raptor which then retransmitted back to _Valkyrie_.

"We've secured the CIC and currently have one Alpha Prize. Sending Alpha Prize back to The Nest… ETA fifteen minutes… over and out."

"_Very good, Marine Actual... Valkyrie Actual out."_

"Not bad for your first trip out…" O'Neill said, putting his arms out wide and motioning at the large space in the Goa'uld CIC. "We've been trying for a while to get one of these."

"We lost a lot of good Marines. _Attia_. I hope it's worth it." Usher faced O'Neill and sighed. "Teal'c," he kept his eyes on the Colonel, "can you figure out what's going on with the _Ha'tak_… if we can salvage it, where the rest of its crew is."

Usher moved out, following closely behind Teal'c as he moved to the larger console in the front of the _pel'tak_, close to a screen which was flickering with its version of snow. An image of the _Ha'tak_ was barely visible which was rotating slowly and flashing parts of the ship in red.

O'Neill walked up to the major, resting his hands on the rifle and looking around the Goa'uld prize. "If it's any consolation, for your first time out, this is pretty impressive… it's a good job."

The Colonial wasn't too interested in any consolation. He bent his neck, cracking and popping it and he sighed and leaned onto the console, both hands not touching anything glowing or looking important. "So, Teal'c, this works by what… telepathic link or something?" He pointed at a blue glowing half-orb on the side of the console, poking his nose closer.

"Incorrect, Major Usher," the booming voice of the Jaffa corrected, "it works via the light from the panels interacting with one's nervous system in a limited fashion. It is only capable of sending simple ideas such as basic navigation data… ship position, damage, location of enemy ships…" and is if on command, which it probably was, a small panel slid out with a screen and small Goa'uld script running across. "Those are auxiliary screens for more detailed readings on what is occurring, Major."

"That's… pretty fraking amazing." Usher chuckled and shook his head. "Gods damn…" He turned to Colonel O'Neill who'd been joined by Major Ramos. "I think it's safe to bring Major Carter up and Doctor Jackson…"

His battle comm. chirped and the major scowled, turning away from the two Earthers and stepping away from them, engrossed in his own conversation.

"So…" Ramos unclipped his PAR-58 and rubbed his neck and pushed up his combat goggles onto the brim of his helmet, "Is this thing flyable, Teal'c?"

"I am attempting to determine that, Major Ramos."

"Too bad we can't keep her," the Marine remarked to O'Neill sullenly. "Imagine what we could do with one of these."

"It'd be great, Ramos," O'Neill, partially distracted, giving him a half-hearted pat on the back. He was concerned with Usher, who looked mad and was talking quickly into his helmet and motioning over other Marines. The Hayskos had already been taken from the _pel'tak_. "Looks like they didn't waste any time…" he jabbed his chin and motioned with his rifle at two Colonial Marines collecting little tidbits of Goa'uld technology. "Think they'll share?"

Ramos grumbled, itching his nose he wrinkled it at the idea they wouldn't. He was shifting his weight, looking over his shoulder. To the Colonel he seemed a little too nervous. "God, I hope so, Colonel. Our men died, too. Not here, but on the ground." He coughed and discreetly pointed to Usher, who was coming back. "Let's see what Captain Colonial has to say."

Colonel O'Neill glanced quickly at Usher and then back to Ramos with a raised eyebrow. Ramos wasn't much of a fan of the _Valkyrie BSG _Marine CO for some reason O'Neill couldn't quite figure out. The Colonial was a bit abrasive and curt, but what Marine wasn't? …Whatever.

"They've secured engineering," Usher informed the three Earthers, "but we were met with heavy resistance. Casualties so far are lighter than we expected but more than I wanted. Seven dead, ten wounded, three of those critical." He swiped a hand over his forehead. "Counter boarding actions in the Cylon War could see twenty percent KDA or more… Teal'c… we need to know where the rest of the Jaffa are."

"What do you plan to do?" O'Neill asked.

"These ships are networked? Well, if you can do it, we'll issue an alert to the Jaffa to lay down their weapons and surrender or-"

"That will most likely not occur," Teal'c informed him, puffing up his chest and pushing his shoulders back. "Jaffa are proud… the Jaffa Sokar has trained are fanatical. Even with their gods captured they will still fight to the death."

Usher wondered if Teal'c sounded proud or disheartened. He mentally shook the chilling thought away that people would fight and die needlessly if they were offered the opportunity to surrender.

"That's unfortunate," Usher snapped, "because we don't want to kill them all. But if they don't surrender then we'll kill them. We vent the compartment to space if we can. Or we can distribute gas."

"Gas?" O'Neill asked, raising an eyebrow. He wasn't sure how much he liked the feeling tingling his limbs and working its way up his spine.

"NX-7 gas or knock-out gas… unless the symbiotes make Jaffa resistant, Teal'c?"

"We are highly resistant to chemical attacks."

"We also have metron gas canisters…" Usher started but saw O'Neill and Ramos given him a disproving look. "It's humane. It kills in less than a minute and there's no sensation of itching or burning on contact."

"Such attacks are dishonorable, Major Usher," Teal'c said with a subtle warning in his voice. "_Ha'tak_ vessels are also designed to protect against gas attacks. Individual environmental sensors which cannot be disabled will seal each compartment if they detect poisonous gases and the atmospheric cleaners in the ventilation ducts are numerous and dispersed. There is no method for central distribution and you would be forced to go compartment to-" the console started blinking and beeping, cutting Teal'c off.

The console was blinking and chirping rapidly and a deep voice sounded over the ship's announcement system in the Goa'uld language.

"Is that…" O'Neill pointed up.

A secondary holographic projector had descended from a recessed compartment above, expanded, and began what looked unmistakably like a countdown to go along with the deep doom-sounding voice.

"…A self-destruct countdown," Teal'c finished. "Major Usher, Colonel O'Neill, we must evacuate immediately…"

* * *

_**Valkyrie**_

_**A Few Days Later...  
**_

Commander Adama took off his glasses and wrapped his index and middle finger around the handle of his coffee cup and in the dim light of his ready cabin and watched the white steam rise up from the hot brown liquid. He brought it closer to his lips and blew but knew the liquid would still be scorching as he took a sip, slurping it a bit too loud for a commander. He set the mug back down and tossed off his glasses, massaging his eyes and listening to the gentle shuffle of papers and the scratching sound of a stylus scribbling notes and checks on a comp sheet.

The ready cabin was much smaller than his quarters and served as an office to conduct business during watch hours than a place to relax and sleep. Its furnishings were some plaques and pictures he'd collected, the _Valkyrie_ crest over the hatch, a metal desk, a small table with seating for four, and little compartment to the side with a private head with toilet and wash basin only.

In the corner was a small three tiered bookshelf with models of the various Vipers and Raptors developed in the last half century with a forty centimeter scale model of _Valkyrie_ on the top shelf. A few orange binders, yellow colored books, and blue notepads- ship manuals- shared the space with the models.

They were about thirty meters back from the CIC, making Adama and the officers in his ready cabin quickly and easily accessible. If people stood he could maybe fit a dozen people in here comfortably.

Adama opened his eyes and stared at the dim glow of the comp sheets and tablets piled on his desk. The DC reports were still piled high. On his desk he could see the faint glow of wall monitors behind him as they rotated the Colonial Seal as a screen saver. The sound powered phone on his right hung over a small part of his desk which he used to stack small manuals and guides under.

"I don't see how you never got those things corrected, Bill," a muted soprano voice with a small hint of a tired raspiness said to the top of Adama's head.

"They didn't start going bad until ten years or so, Allison…" He grinned at the desk, slowly looking up. "I had them corrected. I'm old. They went bad again." He leaned his elbows on his desk and looked up at her.

"Not _that_ old," Colonel Tigh grumbled, sniffing and wiping his nose in mock disgust.

"Not as old as you."

Adama brushed his index finger on his upper forehead while looking at Tigh's balding head which was also reflecting a little bit of the dim light from the lamps and overheads. His old friend caught the look and just grumbled again, rolling his eyes and holding a comp sheet up in front of his face, pretending to ignore the Commander. He was trying a bit too hard to ignore his old friend as he fidgeted in the seat, causing Allison to chuckle at the interplay.

Commander Vasic had untied her ponytail, letting her dirty-blonde hair hang somewhat free since it was 0218 in the morning. She ran a hand through and threw it back over her shoulder. "I feel young in both your presences. Like a young woman." Her chin was elevated for a slight haughty affect.

"Yeah, yeah… hair's overrated," Tigh waved dismissively as he brought the comp sheet back down. "It says here repairs to the portside energy converters are going to take three more days… fraking Chief Web told me by tomorrow evening at the latest." He scribbled a note with a stylus. "If that fraker is in his bunk instead of down there with the DC crew I'll rip his head off."

Adama's eyes narrowed as the image of the chief flashed up from memory. "I won't stop you. He's fine when everything's working but his section's always getting the lowest marks on DC drills during combat… if he isn't up to it then get Chief Rej to replace him. We'll assign Web to waste management and see if that… _motivates_ him."

"Rej's already running the DC crew for our gun batteries." Tigh said. He rubbed his neck, trying to loosen the tension that had accumulated from running the DC crews for the last three days.

In a little over seventy hours he'd probably been to each of the three other ships at least twice and been forced to run around _Valkyrie_ coordinating DC like a fraking Canceron tree hopper with its balls cut off.

Part of his job was intercepting paperwork the Commander didn't need to see or be bothered with which meant he was inundated dealing with frak-ups like Web and running a three hundred man DC party while coordinating nearly fifty techs out on EVA doing repairs to the hull!

Tigh gave himself a quick mental shake to clear his thoughts and toss away the silent griping and used his imagination to conjure up a waste basket and watched his mental avatar toss the list of complaints into the basket like shooting a Pyramid ball.

Adama hummed a low note of agreement at Tigh's observation on the potential replacement Chief. "I know. He can handle it though and he's done well these last few days."

"I'll make a note," Tigh muttered, "and see how Web's doing tommor-" he checked his watch, "I guess in a few hours." He felt a little grumble, then a rumble in his stomach. Adama looked over the brim of his glasses, up from the sheets he was writing on. "Anyone else hungry?"

Vasic and Adama shook their heads but Tigh spotted a few protein bars on the table, leaned back and heard his back crack. He sighed his relief and continued leaning, smiling when his fingers wrapped around the wrapped morsel and after bouncing back began unwrapping the tasty chocolate-coffee flavored bar.

"_Gorgon_'s coming along well, Bill," Allison said to interject some good news, not to brag. "We should be done with repairs to our secondary FTL array and power converters by the start of first watch… we can jump…"

"Saul… what are the estimates for how many jumps we can make… without blowing any engines? I didn't see the CHENG's report…" He started shuffling through comp sheets and started an e-search on his tablet in his inbox.

"We're good to get to that safe spot we ID'ed… four jumps. If we keep them short range… seven or eight light years we won't run the risk of blowing anything and then we can stop in this system for more repairs. It's not any of the battlestars. _Chios's_ FTL is the one we've gotta worry about… we have half our FTL techs over there working night and day." Tigh flipped the comp sheet around as it displayed a local stellar map. "There's a trinary star there spitting out some heavy EM that will gunk up DRADIS and fraking Goa'uld sensors… at least according to our Tok'ra buddy."

"If we can trust him," Allison cautioned.

"The Earthers do," Adama said with a casual shrug, "but we're sending Raptors to get a good picture of the trinary system first… what he did during the battle is too complicated for some sort of triple-gambit- attack his own forces, gain our trust, pray we don't blast him, then trick us to a new ambush…"

"Who was on that _Al'kesh_ that escaped?" Saul asked.

Adama shook his head. "I don't know. But whoever did that to Stagna and her Marines, we didn't find her." He gripped a pen in his hand until the knuckles were almost white. "Frak."

Vasic's eyes turned sympathetic. She shuddered at the thought of what the Goa'uld, whoever it was, did to those Marines. Teal'c and Daniel had explained. It was… it was just horrible.

"I know, Bill," Allison quietly said, "it's hard when something like that happens. That kind of torture… unforgiveable."

"Fraking sadistic bastard." Tigh spat. "At least we got a few good shots on them. Maybe killed a few."

"_Chios_ will need six months in the yards… if they don't scrap her," Allison added with a shake of her head. "That ship has a good history. I'll pray they don't send her to the breakers."

"_Gorgon_ handled herself well," the Old Man complimented, smiling, but keeping his eyes on a tablet computer and a comp sheet. "Your ship got in the thick of it but that was some good maneuvering, Allison." He looked up, his hard blue eyes now as soft as the Aging Lake on Caprica. "Your ship came in and saved _Pan_. The CIC records will show that."

"Thanks, Bill… but it was my Tac-O who recommended it… and a lot of people died before we moved into position… I should have seen it sooner."

Adama pounded on the table lightly. "We can't second guess ourselves."

"Too many," Tigh quietly agreed. He straightened. "We're at war now."

Commander Vasic frowned. "The Fleet could still classify this." She looked at them both. "We've seen it before."

"It's too big," Adama disagreed, "and like Saul said, too many died. An attackstar going missing, that could be covered up. But an entire BSG pulling into the dock yards," he swiveled his chair and faced the side, "…no, I doubt they can. Admiral Corman won't let that happen."

"Damn right he won't, we won't," Tigh answered.

Vasic took a small glass that had been perched on the edge of Adama's desk and took a sip. "I read Captain Upland's preliminary report. She's recommending full disclosure to the Quorum Security Commission." Her left eye closed as the same side's lip curled up. "She said she's expecting some big fight on jurisdiction over the prisoners with Section Seven and FID." She took the comp sheet and turned it so she could tap her knee with its edge. "That Rhadmet frak is going to give FID wet dreams."

"A Goa'uld, a Tok'ra, two dozen Jaffa…" Tigh whistled, "There's plenty to go around. It would have been nice to get that mother ship."

"FID is going to remain in custody of the SG Teams though," she elaborated, "and there's the issue of getting them back to Earth."

"At least we know where it is," the XO said. "But I thought Colonial politics were fraking confusing-"

Allison was agreeing with him, shaking her head. "Tok'ra, Goa'uld, Jaffa, Tau'ri, and all that other crap…" she looked at the Old Man. "What did we get ourselves into?"

Tigh was thinking, his usual grumpy face his only expression, and tapping his fingers on his forearm, staring at the dull gray bulkheads. "You all think the Cylons knew? They disappeared… what if they found something more valuable… or scary, frak… I don't know, and decided to stop killing us because of something out there-"

The sound powered phone above Adama's desk chirped and a small red light on the top flashed.

Tigh leaned forward, picked it up off the cradle to hand the Old Man and then leaned back to extend worried looks with Commander Vasic.

"Adama…" the Commander said as he pressed the phone against his ear and looked up quickly at the two. "We'll be right there." He shot up and hung the phone up quickly. "DRADIS contacts."

Vasic and Tigh tossed the comp sheets onto his desk, Vasic tying her hair back into a ponytail, and quickly followed the Commander out the hatch, a Marine guard following in step behind them on their heels. The Marines guarding the main CIC entrance had the hatch opened for the three.

"Report," Adama ordered as his foot struck the first deck plate.

The Force Deployment Officer of the Watch, Major Chris Palack, at the command console, tore his eyes away from the DRADIS displays and came to a quick attention, snapping off a fist to shoulder salute. "Sir. We had half a dozen small contacts which appeared and vanished suddenly, sir." He pointed up at the main and secondary DRADIS displays, one screen showing a generalized view of the entire DRADIS range and the second showing a more detailed view of the area the contacts were detected in. "Optics didn't get a visual identification so I redirected the CAP out for a look. Alert Vipers are on standby. Contacts appeared at nine-seven-two k-klicks. The BSG is standing by for emergency jump."

"DRADIS contacts!" The tactical watch chief reported.

"Colonial IFFs," Palack said as the circular contacts marked with 'unknown' changed to 'Colonial' almost instantly.

"Message coming over the wireless, commander," the communications petty officer said.

"Send challenge." Adama ordered. He stopped at the command console with Vasic and Tigh behind him. The comms petty officer reported challenge was authentic. "Put it on speakers," he said as he grabbed the receiver.

"_-Sterope Task Force to Valkyrie Battlestar Group… We have received Alert Status Vampire One… thank the Lords of Kobol we found you…"_

_

* * *

_

AN: I hope everyone enjoyed that! It was fun writing. The weapons explanations for energy weapons I thought might provide a good in universe explanation to why they still use missiles and bullets. Not perfect, but that's what there is to work with I guess. What Sacmis saw is a bit subtle but enough to frighten her.

I definitely up'ed the lethality of the Jaffa. That's going to be something more common. There will be more lethal and better Jaffa. I sort of experimented with them way back on the crash site planet and now and I like these a bit better. The Dashmed Guard are just something I created as a necessary component of a Goa'uld culture I want to continue to work on illustrating with all the minor little snakes working for the big System Lords.

On the reviews: Temple of Mars- the Taurons seemed to use the Roman gods' name and they mixed named like Temple of Jupiter in the show. The Taurons will refer to the gods either by their Roman or Greek names depending on how the character sees his or her Tauron heritage.

Sokar will be around for a while. The Ori will never, ever appear in this fic. Will the Replicators? Hm. But the Ori, no way, nope nooooooo!

And again I'm gonna try and keep the chapters down to something reasonable. This one was too long.

Thank you all for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

AN: Thank you for all the reviews, positive feedback, and constructive criticism. Very much appreciated! And I apologize for the long wait. Real life stuff.

* * *

**Sarqara, Capitol City of Delmak**

_Salatis_ Sacmis patiently waited in her chambers for the audience with her lord and master, the great System Lord Sokar.

Standing on her balcony she closed her eyes and let the sounds and heat of the winter evening flow over her.

Sarqara stood close, built directly up to the great walls of the palace, the city was a place of opportunity for a Goa'uld such as herself, and the palace a path to greatness and power. What other city of the System Lords could rival Sarqara? Sacmis knew of no other.

The palace was the center of Sokar's domain, his seat of power and the destination of every Goa'uld birthed by his queens if they sought glory and power. Only the best were given the privledge of commanding Sokar's armies in battle. And only the most distinguished were given the titles of commanders, ship masters, and salatis. The rest, their power not won in battle found their own glory; administrating Sokar's vast empire and guaranteeing enough resources went to maintain extravagant and lavish lifestyles.

The city, like all others in Sokar's domain, was at war.

_Ha'tak_ mother ships lined the north, south, east, and west approaches to the palace. Massive floodlights pierced the skies and formed a wall of light high into the heavens on the main north avenue into the palace. Far in the distance the coliseums trained Sokar's warriors and the factories churned out his war materials.

In the city millions of slaves, Jaffa, and workers lived and worked. High ranking Jaffa and their families were given quarters in the southern wing of the palace or homes in the palace district. Most of the city's residents lived in squat buildings from a few floors to twenty, thirty, or more. Temples and pavilions provided places of worship to Lord Sokar, entertainment, and places to sell and barter for goods or services.

Just below and half a kilometer from her chambers were the fire pits, perpendicular to the main central palace structure. Their fires were low this evening. Prisoners destined to be executed were elsewhere and Sacmis could hear faint shouts and cries of excitement in the distance from the arenas, where the prisoners would fight for their miserable and worthless lives.

The square in which Apophis had been executed teemed with foot traffic. Off to the eastern side of the square, up against the walls were rows and rows of hundreds of small tents and vehicles creating a daily market tens of thousands visited to buy and trade their wares.

Slowly a _Ha'tak_ lifted off from one of the pyramid landing sites on the north. A wing of death gliders approached and took formation in groups of three as they escorted it into the sky and towards space. It went to war… a place Sacmis longed to be. Only in war could a Goa'uld advance its position and through conquest ever hope to become a System Lord…

Feeling the warm heat from the planet and the breeze from the fire pits Sacmis took off a large bracelet, placing it on the stone balcony. It glistened as light reflected on in the pale sunlight, despite it being mid-afternoon, the dust from Netu still clouded the atmosphere. Looking up she could even see the faint black dots of the moon lingering in orbit.

The Goa'uld sighed, running her hand across the stone balcony she extended both arms and leaned forward, looking down at the square. Her eyes glistened with anger as she watched the Jaffa and humans and aliens far, far below. Closing her eyes and refocusing her anger on Rhadmet helped to clear her mind, sharper her argument, and prepare herself for her eventual audience with Lord Sokar.

Hai'tar, walked up and stood besides his mistress. With a fist pounded into his left shoulder he saluted and bowed his head in reverence to his master.

The Jaffa was quiet and spoke without command to do so. "Salatis, Lord Sokar has requested your presence."

She closed her eyes. 'Finally' she mouthed. "Our Lord Sokar is ready to pass judgment." She turned to him. "If you come you will be judged along with me."

"I am prepared for anything, Salatis. I have prepared for death and will accept it gladly if you wish to blame me for the failure to destroy the Colonial forces. As your Deshret of the _Herikropolis_ Dashmed Guard it is-"

"You honor me, Hai'tar, but no." She shook her head. "Rhadmet was to blame and Rhadmet suffered his fate…" the corner of her lip ticked upward. She slid her bracelet back on, securing its straps. Sacmis stepped off, moving into her chambers. "Hold," she commanded.

In front of a mirror she checked her appearance one last time. She wore a white dress currently in fashion in the court, tight at the chest, leaving nothing to the imagination, with a V-slit neck line. The dress ended slightly below the knees in the front but continued to flow to the ankles in the back. Light brown legs and bare arms and shoulders glistened from a light oiling by servants. Delicately she realigned her belt, made of jade colored jewels and leather.

A thick black wig flowed down just past her shoulders in the back and up until it created bangs in the front. Black eyeliner, blush imported from the opposite end of the galaxy, and dark, modest lipstick were her only cosmetics.

One last time she touched the amulet hanging from her neck which denoted her rank, her position as ship master, _Salatis_

Feeling little fear- for she had no doubt of her innocence- she raised her chin and sucked in a defiant breath through her teeth. Rhadmet had ruined her command but his jealousy had ended at the battle, ended with his death.

She and Hai'tar exited her room and entered the dimly lit and deserted corridors of the palace. Sacmis could hear the sounds of instruments and laughter far, far away. The Goa'uld of the court were feasting and celebrating victories.

The walk was quick and indirect, Sacmis wishing to avoid the grand chambers in which her fellow Goa'uld were dining. Enemies abounded within Sokar's ranks and many she believed jealous of her quick rise in rank and position.

They were less than a hundred paces from Sokar's audience chambers when Sacmis and Hai'tar both heard a shuffling, a scratching of claws on stone from behind.

"Sacmis." She stopped, her shoulders rising. Slowly, teeth clenched, and pinching her eyes to slits, she turned.

The voice was hard, yet soft, and decidedly… alien. Her name seemed to slither as it rolled off the black tongued creature.

Her right eye ticked at she saw the figures silhouette in the shadows.

The Goa'uld flashed her eyes gold-silver. Her whole body was tense as the alien walked closer. Hai'tar took a defensive position between her and the alien.

"Be calm, Hai'tar," Sacmis stated, placing a hand on his elbow and guiding him away. "He, this _creature_ is harmless." Hai'tar stepped to the side two steps but kept himself ready to pounce. "And you will refer to me by my proper title."

The creature stopped and as it clicked its jaw, its eyes glowed a deep, majestic violet.

The eyes would have been soothing if it were not for the grotesque body. The creature addressing Sacmis was a head shorter than the Goa'uld but much broader at the shoulders and torso, gray and black skinned. Its teeth were bone white and possessing no lips, its gums were visible. There were divots in its skin, almost scale-like, all over its face and neck. Ruffles of hair were on its scalp and covering half a dozen bony slits which served as ears spaced around the side and back of the head. Natural armor and an elaborate nervous system made these creatures immune to the effects of a zat'nik'tel and other stun weaponry. Powerful digi-grade legs allowed this species incredibly speed and half a dozen claws on each foot were powerful natural weapons.

It wore furs over a simple outfit of black leather armor, streaked with vertical stripes of blood red, and dull gray metal greaves. Small spikes running the lengths of each finger and combining into a row progressing up the forearm made armor there uncomfortable for the alien's species. Its arms below the elbow were bare. Under the armor was a crimson tunic, ending slightly below the waist since its species had little use for pants.

The marking on the armor, a golden Mark of Sokar and three horizontal stripes conveyed high rank but were contradicted by the tattoos on his forearms where there were no spikes. It was a slave and he was bound to Sokar's service on the penalty of death.

"Why should I refer to you by your title when you have no ships to command?" He demanded, using his hand-paws and drawing a circle. "From top to bottom and back, your rise and fall will continue. How long you reside at the bottom… that is the question, is it not? That is the way this Cursed Universe was created, Sacmis."

Sacmis's nose wrinkled and she glared menacingly. "I have no time for games, _alien_." The specie's name was unintelligible in the Goa'uld language.

The alien attempted to smirk, or smile. Sacmis wasn't sure which. He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "How you treat those with more experiences, more victories with such disrespect… are you different or more of the same?" He sniffed her, as his species did, when asking rhetorical questions. "I had such pride in you, Sacmis." He snapped.

Sacmis stood silently. Hai'tar waited patiently for only a word or a simple flick of the hand to act… despite knowing that the small, grotesque creature would put up much more of a fight than one would expect. The alien could and would kill him. Hai'tar had seen these aliens, when desperate and with no weapons, sprint up to Jaffa and rip their throats apart with a mere swipe of the arm.

Its eyes glowed again as it passed through a shadow.

"These new enemies are quite… interesting, Sacmis." He walked behind her, circling her, an act of dominance in his culture. He could see Sacmis tensing. "They attempted to avoid battle, doing only what was necessary to rescue their brethren. One would believe them to be cowards on first impression. Yet such an assumption would be foolish."

"Is that all you want, Tarapah?" Sacmis wasn't surprised he'd seen her initial report. "I'm your student no longer."

She finally used his name. He stopped, his heels clicking together, and bowed his head. "I read the report; I saw the recording, Sacmis. These new people, the 'Colonials' fight with tenacity I haven't seen in some time." He looked to the side, towards the wall. "They fought with spirit, cunning. They defeated you. Did they capture your ship?"

He knew the answer but she humored him.

"They did not defeat _me. _Defeat was inevitable with Rhadmet in command… and no, they did not capture the ship- I set the self destruct when it was clear the sabotage was irreparable. Unless they could read our language their boarding force died with the explosion of _Herikropolis_."

"But you fled before the self-destruct. How can you be certain you killed their soldiers?"

"You have no authority here slave. And no right to question me any longer."

Tarapah stepped even closer. In a flash his hand was out, grabbing her behind her neck, pulling her down. She held her hand back to stop Hai'tar from moving in.

His whisper was a hiss. "I fight for Sokar, command his ships, but not for the same selfish reason as you. I will never forget his ultimatum and how he slaughtered my people." His claws dug into her neck but didn't penetrate. Sacmis held firm. "For how many more years can you pretend to be gods before the galaxy finally casts you aside?" He felt her tension abate and he loosened his grip. "With Ra's death your society is fractured. Even if your petty lord wins this war an unstoppable force is gathering to destroy your corrupt and depraved Dynasty."

Tarapah released her, almost throwing her back erect. Sacmis straightened her dress and slowed her breathing. Her jaw was clenched and she stared unblinking at the little alien.

"You're wrong," she spat. She walked towards him menacingly, unafraid of the tiny alien's strength or his predatory impulses. She knew his kind was deadly if provoked. "Sokar will defeat the System Lords and we will see another twenty thousand years of Goa'uld rule over this galaxy. The Tau'ri, the Hebridians, Hirites, Oranians, Serrakin, none will stop us."

"I pray to my ancestors and the spirits between that you understand what is happening. When you go into that room… remember that he is not your friend… he only cares of your failure…" he trailed off and slowly raised his finger to point down the hall, "remember what I said to you. The Goa'uld Dynasty is falling. Either you fall with it or you step aside and wait to rise from the ashes." He pulled his fur cloak around him and turned. Walking away he stopped. "Your loyalty is admirable. But you show your ignorance and naivety like so many other Goa'uld. Arrogance is a dangerous weakness, Sacmis."

* * *

As Sacmis fell into a walking rhythm Tarapah's words continued to echo. As each sandal struck the ground Sacmis named a System Lord who'd fallen; 'Ra', 'Hathor', 'Seth', 'Mars', 'Apophis' and her very own Lord Sokar had come close to death with the destruction of Netu.

Even the illusive and seductive Nirti had been neutralized by the Tau'ri and arrested by Lord Cronus.

How many minor Goa'uld had been assassinated, murdered by humans in the last four and a half years?

Humans were carving a path of destruction within the galaxy. Wars between the System Lords- like her master's- were erupting on a monthly basis. The inclusion of Earth, a backwards and primitive society, into the Protected Planets Treaty had been seen by many independent and minor System Lords as weakness, a diplomatic failure.

Earth had allied with the Tok'ra and together had begun to destabilize planets by playing her people against themselves.

And Earth was not the only threat. Civilizations were rising beyond what the Goa'uld could control. The Hebridians and Serrakin and Oranians had taken advantage of disunity and expanded.

Only through Sokar and his war could the Dynasty survive.

Sacmis was at the doors of the personal audience chambers for Lord Sokar. Two Necropolis Guard stood watch at the door, powerful mar'kar double staffs clutched in their right hand, daggers on their hip, and zat'nik'tels on their left thigh.

The heavy clunks of a Jaffa in full armor grew louder and louder. One Jaffa, wearing black leather ceremonial armor instead of the metal breastplates, with flowing crimson cape, stopped beside Sacmis. By his appearance and his weapon, a kor'ta ceremonial staff with bladed tip, Sacmis knew he was Sokar's messanger.

The Goa'uld glared at the spear tip as the lights sparkled on the obsessively polished metal points of the kor'ta. She knew while they appeared primitive the Jaffa were experts in their use, capable of throwing them great distances and switching to a ger'ka'tel pistol hidden behind their back, under their crimson capes.

The Necropolis Guard nodded to the others to open the chamber doors. Hai'tar fell in half a dozen steps to the rear. He stood proud and tall as the most distinguished Jaffa warrior would.

She let out a slow breath as the doors opened and closed after she stepped through.

Being led further into the chamber they came upon another set of doors, guarded by more of the Jaffa. Two reached out and slowly pushed open the elaborately decorated doors leading into Sokar's war room.

Sacmis saw her lord standing next to three of his generals; Peristha Rhu, Tenkarred, and Neberatu, the second-in-command of Sokar's forces and ruler of Manethek, a planet second only to Delmak.

They were viceroys, the sub-lords, _Amuntan _in the Goa'uld language, and stood below Sokar in authority in his domain.

Sacmis, head high and shoulders back was dignified in her walk as she approached. Her steps were light and she consciously made an effort to keep her heels from clicking on the floor. She saw from the corner of her eye Lord Cronus had made a bulge in Lord Sokar's lines and was threatening the territory administered by Peristha Rhu on the spin ward edge of Sokar's domains.

She was confident Sokar would… she stopped, mouth slipping slightly open as Sokar turned his back and he, Peristha Rhu, and Tenkarred left the room. Only Neberatu remained.

Neberatu, a tall man with sharp features and calm, almost pleasant blue eyes now spoke for his lord. "Hasykos Rhadmet has served our lord for centuries and has proven himself in combat. In his report prior to engagement he stated Salatis Gilkhan also supported him. Do you deny this?" He folded his hands in front of himself. His wrists and fingers were bare, with no _kara kesh_ in the presence of Sokar.

Sacmis didn't know how to respond and felt fury and anger and confusion all swell up inside her. Her eyes were wild and reflexively she bowed her head, trying to keep Neberatu from seeing her internal torment.

"My lord, I was summoned by Lord Sok-"

"Lord Sokar is leaving to take personal command of his forces at the front. He has no time for you." Neberatu declared forcefully. "Answer me. Immediately." His eyes glowed.

As Goa'uld did the confusion quickly abated. Anger remained by Sacmis was able to focus. In her slightly distorted voice she stated her case.

She kneeled. "I do not deny _some_ of his accomplishments, Amuntan, or some support from Salatis Gilkan," she said quietly, "but these ships were unlike any we had encountered in the past. Their weapons were deceptively powerful, they lacked shields but their armor was thick, their fighter craft nimble and numerous, and their hyperspace technology unlike anything we have ever encountered. Their intentions, their capabilities were unknown… they led us deeper into the forbidden territories, into the Tanshaw Traverse…"

"Yes, the Tanshaw Traverse…" Neberatu slowly repeated. "Your incursion into the forbidden territories could embolden other System Lords to rally against us. Even with the Tau'ri murdering Ra many Goa'uld still heed the ancient declarations. A base we can hide. A battle? How much more reckless could you and Rhadmet have been?" He hissed.

"It was not my decision, Amuntan." The Amuntan hummed a contemptuous acknowledgement back at her.

"It is _your duty_ to serve Lord Sokar's interests. As it is all _our_ duty. You failed."

"There was a traitor, a Tok'ra and Free Jaffa who had infiltrated the ship."

"Yes, the traitor. Tell me about him. Tell me how so many Free Jaffa were able to infiltrate _your_ ship." Neberatu commanded.

"Nizsim, my lord," Sacmis responded. "He had been in service to Hasykos Rhadmet for some time as the glider commander. I do not know his Tok'ra name or identity. The Free Jaffa philosophy preached by the followers of Teal'c and Bra'tac reach the ears of even the lowliest of Jaffa. Their message is carried on the tongues of even human slave soldiers, mouth to mouth. There are no books, no recordings to seize, my lord… no way to know."

"Nizsim," Neberatu stated. His calm eyes momentarily flashed a visceral hatred only a Goa'uld or Tok'ra could feel for the other. "The traitor escaped."

"The glider pilots attempted to kill him." Sacmis stated in her defense.

"You fell into his trap." Neberatu pointed at her, holding his unnatural finger centimeters from her chest. Sacmis looked up, confused. "You fell into his trap, Salatis; he revealed himself, knowing your glider pilots would obsess and attempt to kill him, letting this enemy force decimate your gliders. These Colonial forces annihilated your attacking force… with primitive kinetic and nuclear weaponry. You are not worthy of your title," he spat, "nor your position."

Sacmis felt her heart pounding and her chest heave as she breathed faster and faster. Quickly the Goa'uld took further control of the host body, slowing its heart and breathing. Sweat threatened to drip down Sacmis's forehead, beading just back of the hairline, and she hoped and prayed- but to nothing and no one- that Neberatu would not see the condition she was in.

This wasn't how this was supposed to be! Rhadmet had been the fool who had taken the _Ha'taks_ in without proper intelligence! He had constantly ignored her advice! But she had been unable to communicate with Delmak. Inwardly she snarled at Rhadmet's trickery and deception! The master communication orb, the _ser'nat_, had ensured Rhadmet would be able to twist the situation to his benefit…

She heard a door open as she was about to speak. Snapping her mouth shut she raised her eyes slightly and they widened as she saw the alien, Tarapah enter and stand towards the side of the holo-tank.

She could hear him goading her, insulting her, even as he stood there and said nothing. His mere presence was an insult. His body language was contemptuous and the glow of his violet eyes infuriating.

"Hasykos Rhadmet trusted him implicitly," Sacmis countered, "He trusted the Tok'ra's assessment of the Colonials' capabilities. I voiced my opposition to the Hayskos's plans on many occasions. The Colonials possessed-"

"Silence! Hasykos Rhadmet is dead… if he were alive he would be here answering to our lord for his failure." Neberatu turned to Tarapah, placing his hands on the holo-tank. "You still have allies in this court. Tarapah has spoken to Lord Sokar on your behalf." He sneered at the alien's name, his bile and hatred for the disgusting creature tempered only by the mark on the alien's body, making him the personal property of their Lord Sokar.

"My lord Amuntan Neberatu, what I saw when I probed the mind of the Colonial woman-"

"Are lies!" Neberatu yelled, pounding the holo-tank, cracking the stone casing around the edge. "Bring him!" He shouted into the tank. The Goa'uld general turned sharply and in a blur grabbed Sacmis by the shoulder and pulled her up to her toes, almost lifting her from the ground. "You were given your opportunity… Rhadmet sent back his reports prior to battle; you were in agreement with his strategy! Now you lie-"

"Amun-"

"You would say anything to save yourself." His eyes pulsed. "You _murdered _Rhadmet and _betrayed_ your lord!"

The heavy steps of Jaffa approached. Neberatu threw Sacmis to the ground. Hai'tar still kneeled by her side, to move would be death from the Amuntan.

Her eyes focused on the Jaffa, the Necropolis Guard, six of them, and in the center, a Jaffa in chains…. One of the Guard she had swayed to her side when she had attacked Rhadmet.

The Necropolis Guard halted and pushed their fellow chained Guardsman to his knees and fanned out. Their staffs opened in a snap hiss, pointed at Sacmis and Hai'tar.

Everything stopped for Sacmis.

"Rhadmet was leading us to our deaths! I had to act!" Sacmis pleaded.

Neberatu's nose crinkled in vile disgust at the young Goa'uld. "This Jaffa's guilt was too great. He betrayed his Lord Sokar and his envoy Rhadmet. But in confession he has earned forgiveness." He said softly.

Calm and serene Neberatu stepped towards the Jaffa and when he reached him, grabbed his neck and with a casual flicked wrist broke the Guardsman's neck. The body fell limp to the floor.

"My lord, what I saw in the mind of the Colonial woman-"

"Do not try and lie to me any further, Sacmis." Neberatu was back at the holo-tank, removing something from a concealed compartment. A _kara kesh_.

He came close to her, close enough for her to feel his hot breath on her forehead. A cold hand came up, brushing across her breasts and stopped in the center of her chest. Her eyes widened, her mouth falling opened. The Amuntan wrapped his fingers around the _Salatis_ amulet and tore it from her neck.

Her hands stayed idle at her side. She hadn't even flinched.

"You are Salatis no longer. You are banished from this court and this planet. You and your Jaffa will be taken to the prison city of Memta. There you will reside until your natural or…" he turned his back on her, "unnatural death."

He spun back around and in one swift motion had the _kara kesh_ raised. Her world went black.

* * *

_**Valkyrie**_

**In Orbit of Over Caprica**

Colonel O'Neill wanted nothing more than to get up and leave. Not cause a fuss, not cause a scene, but just leave.

He realized how all the people the SGC had interrogated and debriefed felt; you tell someone everything you know, it gets kicked up the chain of command, and then someone higher-up asks the same damned questions. Military bureaucracy. The colonel mentally scoffed, throwing his eyes down hard towards the deck. Apparently it was universal.

But on the bright side, O'Neill considered, it was something Earth and the Colonies had in common.

"Listen, I already told you all about the Replicators I can." O'Neill let his mouth fall open slightly as he shook his head. "I understand you people are spooked, but come on. I'm a guy who shoots stuff."

The smallish woman, who O'Neill would have described as Japanese, maybe Chinese or Korean had those ethnic groups existed on the Colonies, just raised an eyebrow. She didn't seem big on speaking today.

The man to her right, however, wouldn't shut up.

The dull groan of the battlestar being repaired from its battle damage was more soothing than listen to the guy ask questions and repeat himself over and over and over or dismiss his advice out of hand.

"And I understand that, colonel, but we need all the information possible. We need to know base codes, operating programs, and the materials the Replicators are made of, how their cognitive processors work-"

"Listen, whoa," O'Neill held up his hands, "all I understood was 'Replicator' in that sentence."

The colonel glared a little at the man, Senior Agent Simon Lykaon from Section Nine. O'Neill had seen him board _Valkyrie_ two days ago with a team of suits, G-men, following behind. He knew the moment he'd seen them they worked for some sort of civilian law enforcement or intelligence agency. Section Nine dealt with everything Cylon-related and since this was a mission to find a 'Cylon stealth ship', and despite finding nothing Cylon, it seemed to fall under their jurisdiction. Or something. O'Neill inwardly shrugged.

Sam had seen Lykaon and his men basically bully Major Amorak and Doctor Baltar away from the Goa'uld salvage they'd been working on and took them somewhere off the ship. Lykaon had returned. Amorak and Baltar were gone. He was grateful Sam hadn't been taken to be debriefed either.

The last ninety minutes of his debriefing O'Neill had learned in very great detail that whenever something concerned the Cylons it was taken _very_ seriously. It was almost some 1950s Red Scare thirty-five years after the Cylon War ended.

O'Neill blinked, tossing the distractions to the back of his mind, locking them firmly away, and looked at both officials. Lykaon come into the room with a cocky smile and as soon as O'Neill had shaken his hand he knew he wouldn't like the man. He came off as just trying too hard.

Lykaon just rubbed O'Neill the wrong way. The special agent wore plain clothes with just a pair of combat boots, khaki pants, and an un-tucked collared shirt with two buttons undone. He had one of those ridiculous stubble bears O'Neill couldn't stand and soft face which didn't seem to be able to support facial hair of any kind. Yet the eyes- always the eyes- were different. Hard and almost a cobalt blue they were sharp.

Colonel O'Neill had seen men like him. He'd seen action, despite his young age, and not in the Cylon War. He did remember Upland mentioning insurrectionist and independence movements and criminals selling Cylon processors, using them in cyber crimes or jury-rigging salvaged Centurions to commit felonies.

Yeah, the colonel knew without a doubt this agent had killed before.

"General Namadia," Lykaon said, turning to the uniformed woman. "If what they're saying is true and Replicators have penetrated into the galaxy or know of this galaxy the Cylons and Replicators could attempt some sort of alliance."

"Uh, general? No, that would be wrong." O'Neill said definitively. "One thing the Replicators will not do is 'ally' with anyone or anything. The Cylons I saw in your historical videos are nasty creatures. I wouldn't want to meet one. But the name 'Replicator' should clue everyone in on what their purpose is. They don't ally with anyone. Their goal is to kill everything and… replicate."

"Who would create something like that?" Namadia asked, leaning forward on the gray metal table. She shook her head, her eyebrows almost pressed together from a frown. "The Cylons were never built to replicate in such a manner or operate like that because of the difficulty to control them. The blocks themselves somehow also process information?"

"I can tell you this" the colonel said, "the technology that allows the Replicators to exist us stumped. And it's not like we had time to go and look at all the Asgard's technical info on the bugs, anyway. Thor seemed worried… I think, it's hard to read him… and they don't really get excited or anything all that much." He looked off into a corner remembering his conversations with Thor. "Good guy though."

"The ability to control such an AI and the limit of control should have been obvious."

"We don't know who created them. Whoever did, the Asgard are fighting a war against them. If the Goa'uld ever thought the Asgard couldn't defend their worlds they'd try to toast us again. They tried before and don't know how to take 'no' for an answer unless you really slap them down." O'Neill tapped the table. "But don't think the Asgard can't kick some serious butt. I watched Thor's ship destroy three Goa'uld attack ships and kill thousands of Jaffa in less than a minute. However their technology works, I mean, they sent a ship from another _galaxy_ to this one in _hours_."

Namadia nodded. "The Asgard, could they have created the Replicators and then the Replicators advanced beyond their understanding?"

"Why?"

The general gave him a look. "Why? To kill their enemies. You told us about the Protected Planets Treaty and Earth's inclusion and how the Asgard have set up dozens of safe havens for humanity. That is noble of them. But no race acts out of complete altruism. What if they created the Replicators and just like our Cylons, rebelled? What if they had another enemy in their home galaxy, created the Replicators, destroyed them, and then rebelled?" She flipped a page on her comp sheet. "Those three ships were the example you described concerning your encounter with a Goa'uld named Heru'ur and you said the Asgard killed every last Jaffa on the planet."

O'Neill put up a finger, shaking it back and forth. "Basically, folks, and they can revive people who've been killed. The Asgard aren't a race you mess with. Unfortunately the Goa'uld are cliché megalomaniacs who can't seem to figure out- in the words of Homer Simpson- if you try and fail, never try again. Cimmeria sort of put the fear back into the Goa'uld after they tested the Asgard."

"Obviously the Asgard aren't afraid to use lethal force or conduct expeditionary warfare unlike the Tollan or Nox you described to Captain Upland."

"Yes… obviously," the colonel slowly repeated.

Lykaon and Namadia exchanged a quick look.

"I think we've gotten all we can, general." The agent said with a nod. "I'll debrief Major Carter with Major Amorak or Doctor Baltar present."

Agent Lykaon had folded his comp sheet and had a small mini-computer sitting in his lap, waiting for General Namadia, who was sitting quite still and staring at O'Neill. The colonel was staring back, almost like a battle of wills.

"Agent Lykaon," Namadia said, turning her head but still keeping her eyes on O'Neill, "please, give us a moment."

The man frowned, looked at her and him, and discreetly rolled his eyes. There were a few reasons he'd never joined the military. Dick waving contests and little things like this were just- and he couldn't find a better word at the moment- weird for him. He'd seen the Fleet Marines acting like buddies with SG1 and SG8. He hated that. Maybe it was just his nature to distrust the frak out of people, but whatever.

His tone was flat in acknowledging the general. "Yes, general… I'll be outside."

Namadia waited until he'd gone. She had a mini-computer, too, sitting on the side of the desk, and she extended her hand, index finger straight, and jammed it straight down.

"Surveillance is neutralized, colonel." Namadia stood, throwing her hands behind her and walking up to O'Neill, then sitting half a single butt cheek on the table.

"Um… thank you?"

The Colonial general ginned and failing to suppress it chuckled. "When _Valkyrie_ docked I didn't believe what I was hearing. Alien empires and warlords, snakes like that Tok'ra, in people's brains… it sounded like science fiction, colonel. And when I heard you were from Earth I was shocked. When I learned Jessica was almost killed…" she trailed off. "She's going to do great things for the Colonies and I've never seen a mind like hers. Not Doctor Baltar and not even her father. The stuff she can do, I can't keep up anymore, none of us can. I helped raise her, she's like a daughter to me, colonel." She paused for a heartbeat. Her voice was lower, slower. "I've already seen Captain Nikon. They would have died without the protection of SG1 and SG8. You saved them. For that, you have my eternal gratitude, colonel. If you need anything from me don't hesitate to ask."

* * *

Commander Adama signed the latest report and handed it back to his yeoman. He sighed and looked at the stack of everything; requisition orders, repair lists, personnel transfers. It was a zoo on his desk. And Saul Tigh wasn't helping by sipping on his whiskey and giggling about it.

"Why aren't you doing this?" The Old Man asked in his hushed tone.

"I _already_ did my paper work, Bill."

The Old Man's eyes narrowed at his friend. "That's because you didn't have to go see Ordinus."

"If the Fleet Admiral wanted to see me, I would put on my dress grays and throw on the best fake smile I could." And Saul did try his best fake smile, only to get the captain's log book shoved at him, forcing him to giggle again.

"You've had enough." Adama reached over and snatched the whiskey bottle, the golden-brown fluid splashing inside, and set it down hard enough next to him so some of the whiskey jumped. "It's not every day aliens attack and you're called into the fraking command of the whole damn fleet's office."

Saul hummed a thought. "Ordinus is a good man, Bill. Why the hostility?"

Adama waved it away, grunting. "It wasn't him. Well it wasn't just him in his office. Delegate Shaw and Trellos were there."

"Oh… _oh_… I am so sorry, Bill. Them." Saul almost seemed to sober up at the mention of those two. "Those two hate each other."

"They ended up arguing with each other more than with me. Trellos insisted on a CRB."

"So they're going to blame you for the losses?"

Adama took off his glasses and pinched his nose bridge. "Admiral Ordinus informed me he's convened a CRB for seven weeks from today."

"Frak… a Combat Review Board… not good."

"Maybe."

"When do the Fleet Investigators get here?"

"They'll be here next week." Adama sucked in a breath. "I wasn't going to leave our people down there to die. They're going to ask why I didn't cut my losses and jump back to the Colonies for orders…"

"Frak, Bill, you did what you were expected to do. You did your duty like we all did. That's what Paestum teaches; initiative, aggressiveness… you did that. We all supported you. Hell, even if I disagreed, and I fraking wouldn't, you're the commander. We follow orders." Saul finished off his drink. "And gods damn anyone if they try and pin this on you. It'd be a disgrace."

"Trellos was still pissed. When was the last time a CRB ruled against anyone higher than a lieutenant colonel, Saul?"

"Point." Saul conceded after a moment of thought. "I don't remember."

"I also saw Admiral Corman as I was leaving. He made the same observation… he's on our side. I'll be meeting with him again, but he had to go to Leonis… urgent business." Adama grunted, a 'yeah right' look on his face.

"Oh?" Saul perked up, waiting for the scuttlebutt.

"Yeah. He'd been called by Emperor Corban. He was going to Leonis to brief the royals."

"Captain Ophion's father?" Adama nodded. "Gods, we're back a week and the vultures circle. They want your blood?"

"Corban was fairly calm in the message… concerned about why his son hasn't contacted him-"

"I guess being third to the throne of billions is a big deal." Saul almost spit but satiated his disgust with a hard swig of the whiskey. "Never liked fraking royalty, not one bit, Bill… you know what I'm talking about… should've forced everyone to be democracies."

The commander shrugged. "Whatever they want to do, Saul, it's not up to me. Planets get to retain their own form of government as long as they obey the basic rights in the Articles."

"I guess… any word on our friends?"

"The Tok'ra, the Goa'uld, or the Jaffa?" Adama asked, thumbing through some good old fashioned paper in one of his supplementary log books.

"Gods, does it matter? They all have those things inside them." Saul's nose wrinkled. "Bunch of freaks…" Saul finished under his voice.

"Don't say that to Nizsim, I think, or the Free Jaffa… they're going down to Caprica. I don't know where Rhadmet and his Jaffa are going. FID took them, you know that, and didn't tell me anything."

Saul rolled his eyes, picking up the top comp sheet from Bill's desk and reading through as just something to keep his hands busy. Schematics and repair schedules for _Valkyrie_ and the rest of the BSG appeared. He thumbed up the menu and switched views to the progress reports from _Sterope_ BSG.

"Salvage ops should be done within a month… maybe we'll find some goodies in the _Ha'tak_ wreckage." The colonel said. Saul kept his eyes down, looking right at the report and pretending to read it. "Did you get your wife's call?"

Adama's pen stopped. After a few seconds where all the two men could hear was the hum of the ship he placed the pen down and looked up. "My wife?"

"Gods damn, Bill… Lee's graduating soon and she wanted to know if you'd be there."

"Of course I'll fraking be at my son's graduation!"

The Old Man's friends held up a hand. "Calm the frak down, Bill. I'm not the one doubting you here." There was a moment of silence. "It's going there, isn't it?"

"It's going there."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be… but thank you, Saul. It's been slowly heading there since I got back into the Fleet. We argued before the mission, too."

The colonel was shaking his head, feeling his friend's emotional pain. "If you need anything… I can handle it here for the next few days if you need to go to Delphi."

"There's ten thousand men and women in the BSG who still haven't been granted liberty, Saul. I'm not going to do something my people can't do."

The XO's eyebrow went up a bit. This was just one more reason why Bill Adama was his best and trusted friend. And why he was the best fraking Fleet officer he'd ever served with.

"Then stay busy, Bill."

Adama grabbed a few more comp sheets, tucked them into one of his books, and tossed it into Saul's lap. He had a small grin. "More than enough to keep both of us busy."

* * *

**Unknown Location**

Rhadmet walked. He walked until his feet bled and his muscles ached. His knuckles were sore and bruised from where he'd tried to smash his way out- knowing he never could, but he had had to try. Anything, something… he just tried anything.

Every trick, every subterfuge, everything he knew and nothing worked.

His blue jumpsuit was stained with streaks of blood on the thighs from where he'd wiped his torn knuckles.

Being a Goa'uld he could lessen pain, regenerate his human host quickly but not in this place. The rules were different here. This prison- he knew it was a prison- was unlike anything he had ever encountered.

"Where are you?" He snarled at the walls, at the ceiling. Open palm he smacked a control panel as he came to a new bulkhead. "You are a coward!"

His hand reflexively shot up to shield his eyes as the hatch was ripped off its hinges and disappeared. Everything had been dull, with red emergency lights glowing, and now the hall was bright, white, glaring. He adjusted the eyes of his host quickly and while still focusing, he smelled and heard strange things.

There was the smell of pine and the sounds of birds and the air was wet from a recent rain.

With his eyes adjusted he saw the hatch had given way to an old, ancient stone arch. He stepped through, his bare feet digging into cool mud and moss. The mud squished below his feet as he cautiously walked forward towards what he perceived as a clearing.

There were many things about this place, let alone its implications, that bothered him.

"I'm here." Rhadmet turned at the voice, bending his knees to lunge, clutching his fists. The man was concealed in shadow. "And nothing you can do will hurt me."

The man stepped forward. Rhadmet saw the black uniform but his eyes darted to the pistol strapped to his thigh. The man's fingers itched the glossy wood grip like he was daring Rhadmet to step forward, to attack, and to lunge with all his fury at him.

Rhadmet regained his dignity and stood up, pushing his shoulders back and raising his chin. "Who are you? I demand you release me from this trickery."

The man snorted, rubbing his temple. He breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. "I see this is going to take some time, Rhadmet." He walked closer. His boots stayed cleaned despite the mud. "I guess we can go for introductions…" the man held out his hand, palm open.

"Do not touch me, human."

After a moment closed his hand into a fist and withdrew. "Ah… I see." He smoothed his uniform. "Yes… introductions, then, Rhadmet? I'm Commander Marc Bannon, intelligence officer for Sixth Fleet… of the Colonial Fleet. The Colonies of Kobol… you attacked us, unprovoked, remember?"

"All humans are subjects to the Goa'uld and Lord Sokar. You trespassed on one of Sokar's worlds."

Bannon walked passed Rhadmet, brushing his shoulder. The Goa'uld swung at him but Bannon had moved a dozen steps ahead in the time it took for the Goa'uld to ball his fist and strike. Snarling, the Hasykos stared at the back at the man.

"You're not in any position to make a demand, to grandstand, to do anything, Rhadmet. You were captured. You were brought aboard _Valkyrie _unconscious. They tried to keep you sedated but you metabolized the drugs too quickly. So Captain Upland had an idea… you've spent the last few weeks or so since your capture in the virtual world." Bannon leaned down and picked up the dirt, tossing it at Rhadmet. It landed at his feet. "You're confused about the time? In this place nothing is real, not even time. It's all fake. Illusions projected into your mind by a very expensive, very unique holo-band." He swiveled his foot in the dirt, looking down, but Rhadmet could see a little smile. "You figured out this wasn't real fairly quickly. Impressive."

'Holo-band' had no relevance to Rhadmet. What he did understand was this being a virtual world. He'd 'known' or suspected for some time. But the time! Weeks? How long were 'weeks'? He felt his heart pounding.

"Impossible. Such technology does not exist within the capabilities of humans."

"No, it's not impossible. This is Cylon technology… if that means anything to you. We found this technology forty years ago, on a Cylon baseship we disabled, a prison really, as a tool the Cylons would use to trick our soldiers into believing they'd been rescued and reveal vital intelligence." He sighed. "When we found the ship it held over a thousand high ranking prisoners- commanders, generals, admirals, politicians. They'd all been driven insane by this device. We've modified it, of course… but," he laughed, "it's not entirely legal." Bannon winced, bringing his shoulders up. "But on the other hand not entirely illegal, really. How can you outlaw something you don't know exists?"

Rhadmet bared his teeth. "Release me. I will testify on your behalf to Lord Sokar to kill you swiftly. If you do not his fleets and his Jaffa will take their time with all of you… you will watch as we burn your cities to the ground and as our soldiers murder your women and your children and finally kill you… slowly, painfully. And some," he stepped forward definitely, closer and closer to Bannon, "we will take as hosts."

"No, I don't think so, Rhadmet. We've fought and bled for our lives against each other and against our own nightmare enemies. We won't be that easy to kill… I was born into war like so many others, a war you could never truly understand." He was chest-to-chest with Rhadmet. "My mother died in a corn field, fleeing an advancing Cylon column. She died less than an hour after giving birth to me. I never knew my father. He died in the War. The Cylons tried to take everything from us. What could the Goa'uld try that hasn't been tried before?"

A massive robot towering over Rhadmet appeared from behind one of the large trees. The Goa'uld took a step away from the towering monster and plowed his back into the chest of another robot. He turned with eyes wide, mouth open. The robot from behind the tree pinned him with a hand to the neck and lifted him off the ground. What little sun shined into the forest glared off its silver chrome armor. Its blood red eye stopped its mechanical _swoosh-swoosh _and began humming as it menacingly stared at him. Its metal fingers tightened around Rhadmet's neck, stopping blood and blocking air from filling his lungs.

It let go and he fell to his hands and knees, gasping for air he rubbed his neck. Slowly he stood when he saw the black pavement and felt a warm sun on his back.

The forest vanished and a beautiful cityscape appeared. There were towers, glistening towers of glass and lights. Massive billboards danced with colorful and lively advertisements. One billboard showed a man and woman, barely dressed, running down a white san beach, smiling and laughing.

Cars and streets packed with humans zipped by Rhadmet and Bannon. Street vendors peddled pictures, food, trinkets, everything one could imagine.

"This was a city on my home colony, Tauron. The city is Hypathia," Bannon said. "Twenty-two million called the city home before the war. This here was the Tauron Crossroads, the commercial and entertainment capital of Tauron."

The pristine and glistening city vanished. The people and street vendors and billboards disappeared. Skeletons and burned, charred husks of cars and kiosks remained. One of the massive billboards was lying in the street on its side, a corner pinning a skeleton against a bombed out building.

Rhadmet was still standing in square which was gray and black from soot and fire and rubble. In front of him he saw the ruins of what must have been a magnificent tower of glass and steel. To his left another skyscraper had collapsed into the one across the street, debris raining down.

He saw the burning ruins of a strange death glider, a mono-wing craft, and two of the small dart craft the Colonials used. Vehicles with guns and canons littered the streets and square, some smoking, some nothing more than black wrecks.

Skeletons, burned beyond recognition, wore nothing but old combat helmet armor.

He heard gunshots, explosions. Rhadmet kept himself from ducking, knowing this was nothing more than a simulation. Bannon stood next to him, calm, composed.

The battlefield erupted as soldiers and Cylons fought from the skyscappers and buildings, firing across the square. A duo of heavy vehicles with massive canons rolled through a street and separated as they came into the square. They fired at closest enemy skyscraper, explosives ripping apart the walls, Cylons blasted apart. Missiles from both sides streaked towards buildings, gouging holes and sending men and machines flying. Rhadmet saw a Cylon collapse and fall from a ten story window. Its body fell and it landed on a car, crushing it below its weight. Its neck sparked and its red eye dimmed dark.

The tanks advanced to the Cylon buildings, covered by infantry. Some sort of hovering glider with rotor blades rose from behind the Cylon building and unleashed a fury of missiles on the tanks and soldiers. Some missiles exploded in flight, others hit, smashing the tanks and tearing apart the Colonial attackers.

A squad of Colonial soldiers made a valiant effort to save comrades still alive. Even under covering fire the Cylon attack was relentless. Two Cylons managed to flank the Colonial rescuers, pinning them down. Within seconds a plume of flash of light, a roar, and a plume of smoke shot out from a Colonial building and impacted right between the Cylons, blasting them apart and sending pieces and limbs flying in all directions.

The battle abruptly ended.

Commander Bannon stepped in front of him.

"This is just a small battle Rhadmet and it's to show you we don't have to be enemies. We have enemies, we don't need more. We've lived here, kept to ourselves in our little corner of the galaxy for thousands of years. We have no conflict with you. We have an enemy right in our backyard we're far more concerned about. Unfortunately we signed an armistice with the Cylons thirty-five years ago instead of wiping the frakers out. Now they've vanished. We've searched dozens of star systems, thousands of cubic light years of space. Nothing.

"I've been told by SG1 and the Tok'ra what it is a Goa'uld wants… power, strength, wealth. Your kind conquers planets and enslaves billions. Our fight isn't with you or Sokar or any other Goa'uld. It's with the Cylons. We wish to protect ourselves from the Cylons."

"You think _this_ will intimidate me? I have seen and heard of enemies in the galaxy which would be beyond your comprehension, human." Rhadmet leaned in and Bannon could feel his breath. "If these Cylons come to kill you-"

"They won't just kill us, Rhadmet. They'll kill you, too. You're safe, now. But these are machines. They know no fear, have no morale to destroy, and know no time limit. They can wait for centuries before striking, slowly building their forces from the shadows. They waited until our fleets had battered each other and were away from our home worlds before attacking."

The commander saw a muscle tick in surprise at the mention of 'fleets.' The truth, as spoken by the Tok'ra and the SGC personnel had been hard to swallow; a galaxy of thousands of worlds, many descendents of the Tau'ri, yet ruled and enslaved by disgusting snake-like creatures with god complexes.

They had not only attacked a Colonial battlestar group and killed over a thousand men and women but were impersonating the Kobolian gods and committing genocide and planetary rape on a galactic scale. For Bannon the death toll of the Cylon War seemed almost inconsequential, the twelve and a half years of war almost nothing compared to a galaxy dominated for thousands of years by such tyrants.

Shattering the galactic-view of a Goa'uld, he figured, was a way to get inside the megalomaniac's armor.

"Lord Sokar will lead a powerful fleet to your worlds and burn them." Rhadmet's eyes had been closed and he had spoken slowly when pronouncing the worlds would 'burn.' He didn't see the Commander's disgust. "Nothing you can do now will stop him from incinerating your worlds."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes."

"I don't know, Rhadmet. Apparently, according to the Tok'ra, we're in some 'forbidden region' of space." He used air quotes despite his extreme hatred for air quotes. "We can trade space for time… Commander Adama evaded you for a month." He turned his wrist, looking at a watch. "And your master is busy fighting half the System Lords by now if he stuck to his time table, right?" He tapped the watch pane. "But that can change. My superiors authorized me to make a deal and didn't want me to show you the Cylons or tell you that billions of people and a dozen worlds hang on your decision. With Sokar you were just an administrator, am I correct?" The Hasykos was quiet, glaring. "You hold the power now, Rhadmet and that power is significant. What you know is valuable, priceless. We _need you_ to help us."

Bannon saw a change in Rhadmet's posture. It was subtle and quick but unmistakable; the Goa'uld didn't know how to react to someone completely uninitiated by him. The commander was quickly learning how to deal with the Goa'uld and what he saw of them was bitterly disappointing. He almost pitied them. Almost.

"What is it you want from me?"

Bannon looked to the right and smiled. Rhadmet didn't see the contemptuous smirk flash on the far side of the officer's face.

The scene returned to the forest. "Your knowledge, Rhadmet, is what we want. We know you have the entire genetic memory of your race in there. Everything the queen who birthed you ever learned. You've lived for centuries, seen things completely unimaginable to someone like myself, things I would consider fantastic are, well, normal for you." He knew he had to praise the snake, as much as it turned his stomach. "Who couldn't envy that?" For a few heartbeats he paused, letting Rhadmet digest his words. "It's remarkable. But the truth is that you're here. FID has you. But we're not villains; we're not ruthless monsters, Rhadmet. You will still have power. You will have the power to trade information, technology, for luxury. The Colonies have the resources of billions of people to call on and my organization has the capabilities to make your life very, very comfortable." He put his hands on the snake's shoulders. "We have resources, Rhadmet. Work for us, tell us your secrets, share with us the wonders of the galaxy and we will give you such a lifestyle and so much luxury a System Lord would be envious."

* * *

**Caprica City, Caprica**

"So, what is it that you want for yourself, Jessica?"

Doctor Gaius Baltar cocked his head and propped an elbow on the table, slouching slightly in a nonchalant sort of way towards the street, half grinning at Jessica Amorak. He'd pulled down his tie and undone the top button of his shirt for a more casual flare.

Jessica scooted back from the edge of her chair and pushed up on the armrests to slouch somewhat provocatively for the doctor. She let the question ruminate for a moment- the day was warm and sunny with a slight breeze coming from the ocean three blocks away. The birds were out and singing in the tall trees lining the roads of Cap City and the traffic and crowds were light and quiet. It made for a lazy 'work lunch.'

She noticed Gaius's eyes flicker down to her breasts on more than a few occasions, almost passing the point of flattery to awkwardness when one added in the cocky as frak grin. But Jessica, with a little mental smirk, decided to play oblivious. It was much more fun and distracting, and Jessica needing distractions now more than ever.

There were quite a few other women in the Canceron-themed café. In some way, some very wrong way she quickly admitted she was somewhat flattered Gaius Baltar kept his eyes on her. And she liked the way they tended to focus in and out when he stared too long.

The sun dress she was wearing, which was serving to only exacerbate Gaius's distraction, was a summer pattern of whites and light blues and was perfect for the humid, sunny weather of Cap City summers. Traditionally the sun dresses of Caprican women tended to be an almost perfect blend of modesty and exposure, almost fit for wear on Gemenon, but current trends pushed the dresses more towards exposure, with the dresses slightly shorter on the legs and tighter where it counted. And Jessica made it a point to stay very current with Caprican fashions.

A pair of dark leather ankle-wrap sandals in the Sagittaron trend, a cuff bracelet on both wrists and a small necklace finished the look. Her hair was back to its natural black, wavy, and hanging free, slightly over the shoulders.

"I guess to answer your question…" Jessica chewed the inside of her lip for a few seconds, "is that with what I know now I want the Colonies to be safe."

"That's sort of impersonal, Jessica." Baltar leaned forward and picked up one of the breadsticks from a full basket sitting on their table. "And a safe answer. And you modified the question."

"Well," she leaned forward, closer, "you did ask a very _personal_ question."

"Ah, but was the _question_ personal or the _answer_ personal?" He grinned and took a triumphant bite of the breadstick, dabbing it lightly in a small plate of olive oil.

The answer was clear, she'd known what he was asking, but she'd never told anyone. "Not many people have asked what I've wanted, Gaius. I've always been told what to do. You asked me a few months ago why I joined the military. Maybe it was my way of rebelling and making a name for myself disconnected from 'Amorak'."

Gaius started laughing, trying with one hand to cover his mouth and the other waving an apology. "Sorry… but really? Joining the military to rebel against your father sounds dreadfully _boring_, Jessica."

"Maybe I just wanted to do my own thing?"

"Becoming a scientist like your father?"

"I'm not going to let my own talent go to waste." She saw the amused look on his face. "And it's not arrogance saying that. Plus the shouting and yelling matches with my father would be anything but boring. We could've held it in Atlas Stadium and sold tickets."

Jessica crossed her arms and swore not to let the past ruin this afternoon.

"Have you talked to him since you got back?" Jessica frowned but Gauis answered with a sympathetic smile and touched his chest. "I've had horrible relations with my own father." He closed his eyes and lowered his voice, almost to a whisper, like it was a great secret between him and her. "It's something I've regretted. I loved him. But we departed on disagreeable terms."

She hesitated. A little voice inside of her was suspicious of Gaius's motivations but for some reason she wasn't able to exactly peg down, shushed the little voice of suspicion.

"I haven't seen my father in some months… a while before we left, too." She huffed. The major eyed her water glass and dabbed the condensation off with a napkin before taking a petite sip.

Gaius's head cocked sideways, his eyes widened. "Really, it's been almost three weeks? I talked to him last week and he knows about our little adventure."

"Of course he does." Jessica's tone was flat.

Gaius was about to ask her another possibly personal question when the waiter arrived with their food.

"Caprica U?" Jessica asked the young waiter. She saw the white and red CU lettered into the background of his watch face.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good school. Could I have another water? Bottled. Ciran brand." The waiter eyed her glass, still basically full, but nodded and departed. "I also enjoy teaching a little at the Academy." She played with her food, pushing around a slice of orange to the edge of her plate.

"Something wrong?"

"Uh, citrus…" she looked up at Baltar and pointed at his sandwich and soup. "Light lunch, Gaius?"

"Salad?" He asked with a wink and very appreciative that so many women watched what they ate. It made his time with women so much more enjoyable. "I have to confess, Jessica," he said after a small bite, "I didn't ask you down here just for a social call." There was another small bite and a petite wipe of the corner of the mouth.

"No. Fraking. Way." She said in mock surprise. The waiter brought her back a a clear glass bottle with black and blocky 'CIRAN' letters scrolled vertically and a fresh glass cup.

"It relates to my question previous question; what do you want for yourself? With what we've discovered a new chapter in our history is going to be written. Once the people learn of the galaxy out there nothing will be able to stop us. There's opportunity in a galaxy which has just been opened up for us. Historic decisions will have to be made in the coming months and the Colonies will need visionaries to guide the people into the future."

"We shouldn't talk about that here. It's classified." She hissed.

Gaius brushed away her concerns. "These people have no idea what we're talking about. But Jessica, my dear, do you truly believe your career and your personal ambitions are best served in the military?"

"In relation to…?"

"Everything we've witnessed since _Lucky Tonight_."

Gaius pushed aside his plate and leaned forward, resting on his elbows, as Jessica continued to eat her salad.

"Well, yes, I do. We've done important work. And you assume yourself to be this 'visionary', Gaius?"

He nodded.

"But phobias and pessimism within the military complex will keep much of _that _work concealed. And do you want your accomplishments and discoveries to remain as secrets, buried in the military bureaucracy? Do you want them claiming _ownership_ of everything you discover? Everything you create while wearing that uniform is fully owned by the Fleet. Just imagine the wealth and opportunity when we begin trading with the galaxy."

Jessica's eyes narrowed at the word 'ownership' and her fork stopped midway between plate and mouth. She gently set it down and leaned in. "Is this just about money and fame?" There was an acidic tone in her voice.

"It's about the due recognition we'll both deserve. It's also… about keeping the Colonies safe. We can unlock the secrets out there." He pointed up and sat quietly for a moment. "Think about it Jessica; the discoveries we can make will put our names in the history books. But the military has a propensity for secrecy and fumbling."

"You _are_ insulting the people I work for, Gaius. And you're maybe a bit too confident about what 'discoveries' we will make."

"You think we need _them_?" Gaius rolled his head. Jessica knew he was talking about Earth and narrowed her eyes. "I've listened to the interrogation tapes and can infer that they don't have the ships or resources to help _us_. That X-301 Major Carter talked about… they don't even have aerospace fighters. We don't need them and I don't want them and how do we know they aren't going to use us? We know nothing about them, Jessica… only what a handful of their military tell us. And of course they're not going to tell us anything that could damage our perception of them." He lowered his voice. "Earth could be a despotic theocracy for all we know or one of those dirty mutualism communities."

Jessica shook her head and played with one of her cuff bracelets. "No. And even if you're right so what? So they get some of our technology. They also have technology we could use and mass produce." She coughed. "We're already modifying the shield penetrators to increase their efficiency fifteen percent, Gaius. Do you know where we'd be if we didn't get that from Major Carter?" Gaius raised an eyebrow. "Dead."

He suddenly slid a hand under hers and with the other, softly clamped it between both. "You're a smart woman, a beautiful woman, and a woman who knows how to get what she wants. We've been through a lot together… and we shared a unique experience few ever have or ever will."

"I'll never forget 34-Alpha or Fruity," she whispered. "It's…" she placed her free hand over his. "It's still difficult. I wake up at night, sweating, seeing the faces of those Jaffa… I know they would've killed us, but it's so different when you can see them, see them die so close, so personal."

He looked down, squeezed her hand and then brought his hands back to his lap. "The weeks after we crashed were hard but you helped. You may not have realized it, Jessica, but you helped me." His shoulders rose and lowered in a regretful sigh.

"I didn't realize-"

Baltar knew how to get what he wanted.

"We're good for each other. We've been working together for over a year and working well together. I admit it was a little tense on _Valkyrie _once the SGC personnel were brought aboard, but we achieved a great deal. You're one of the most talented women I've ever known."

Jessica smiled and suppressed the images of 34-Alpha, her demeanor changing as she pushed back a loose hair behind her ear. She tried to be cheerful. "Thank you, Gaius. You always just seemed to be, well…" half of her inner voice told the other half to ignore his previous attempts to get inside her pants, "I don't know, unique." He gave her an exhausted look. Giggling she leaned in. "Maybe a bit on the sweet side. You can be sweet, charming when you want to be, when you're not pissing people off, Gaius. Except on a few occasions I've enjoyed this."

"This?"

"Whatever this is." Jessica shrugged, took another bite of her salad, and pushed the plate to the side. "But what was your ulterior motive, Gaius Baltar for asking me here?" she asked playfully, raising her eyebrows and speaking in one of those proper, snobbish voices.

Gaius steepled his fingers at the bottom of his chin. He could have, so he believed, any woman he wanted. With Jessica playing hard to get, this made it more fun. And how many were his intellectual equals? He didn't know anyone else.

He decided it was time to make his proposal.

"The military is going to need civilian consultants. There's going to be billions in contracts floating around. Resign your commission and come into business with me."

Jessica gave him a look.

"Me and you in business together?"

"I'm starting a new company to begin reverse engineering what we salvaged. I need capitol for equipment and talented scientists. I've got a significant amount of my personal net worth invested already. I need more startup capital."

"And how much more do you need?"

"I'm looking at ninety million for ten percent."

Her mouth fell open. "I'm a fleet officer, Gaius." She wanted to play hard to get, see how far he'd go. "I don't have that kind of cash."

An eyebrow rose. "No? You have a luxury apartment in the Kru Spire Towers, right on the water, and the tower has a private beach. That's what… fifty-five thousand a month? Nice place. That's probably _the _most exclusive tower in Cap City. And I doubt you could afford that car you love driving on a major's-"

"A girl should have secrets without people digging into her personal life." She said flatly, interrupting him. "So, obviously you've done your research." She leaned in on the table, scooting all the way up to her elbows. "Or you're spying on me." The corner of her mouth cracked to a small grin.

"The Amorak family trust fund. Your family has been the subject of too many documentaries to count… 'War Profiteers', 'Scientists or Butchers'…"

"Complete bull frak," she cursed, leaning back and crossing her arms. "Those aren't documentaries; they're smear jobs by en-"

"I know they are, Jessica. But I've done my checking and they are right; your family has made an incredibly amount of money selling weapons and developing weapon technology. Some is applied to civilian sectors, but the point is the money's there. And you have the expertise and experience."

"Still, that's a lot of money…" she relaxed and chewed her lip, distracting herself momentarily by watching a group of young students in Cap U colors milling about on the other side of the street. "I've burned enough bridges with my father…"

"The patents your family holds and its investments…"

Jessica shook her head. "My father just wants to maintain family appearances." She ran a finger on the brim of her water glass. "I can get a lot, but I couldn't get ninety million. And that is a significant amount of money for a startup."

"The equipment and talent will be expensive. A small cylonic collider alone is eighty million, Doctor Melenius isn't cheap if I want to get him away from Vergis. And what's the saying? 'Where there's a will…'? With our contacts and experience we'll make billions. In twenty years our company could be larger than Vergis or Kourus-Graystone combined. And you said you wanted to make something your own? Here's the opportunity, Jessica. You and me. We can help write a new chapter of Colonial history. How often does an opportunity like this present itself… once every thousand years?"

"I can't argue about the importance of what we could find out there," Jessica conceded, "but resigning my commission to get rich would look petty in the eyes of many of my Fleet colleagues. You're assuming that Vergis or KG don't just bury you."

"You don't have to worry about that," Gaius replied confidently. "I've gotten to know you. You're also an idealist."

Jessica laughed. "I've never heard a weapons scientist being described as an 'idealist' before." She kept smiling.

"Think of the possibilities out there; naquadah would revolutionize space travel like the Ambrose battery did for cars or how Graystone revolutionize the Mesh with the holoband." He leaned in. "This isn't defense work that will be classified for all eternity. What we've done could win us a Magnate Prize ten times over. But it never will. Because it's classified _forever_." He added extra emphasis on the last word, tapping with each syllable.

Jessica shrugged, tilting her head in a mild conciliatory gesture and opened her small purse, taking out her cell phone and checking the time. "I have to get back up to _Aether_ station," she declared, "the last transport leaves in a few hours." She leaned on the table. "And I have to change. Obviously. Um, let me think about your offer, Gaius, give me a while." She smiled at him and picked up her purse. "I'll see you later."

Gaius, playing the gentleman stood up, smiling as he watched her like a Caprican black hawk, then changing the smile to a smirk as he focused on the hips and rear and the legs and well, just about everything he admitted. He watched her until she turned a corner to the mag lev station and realized she'd left him feeling quite content… and despite the no smoking sign took out a cigarette.

When Gaius Baltar wanted something, he got it. And Jessica was unlike many of the women he'd pursued before. She was _almost_ his intellectual equal and that made her a treat he would savor.

Snapping the igniter he lit the cigarette and ignored the stares. Yes, she'd left him feeling quite content…

And she'd left him the bill.

* * *

_**Aether**_** Fleet Station**

**Caprican Orbit**

"Anyone want to tell me why or how we never met these people before?" Jack O'Neill held his hands up and braced himself on the sides of a bulkhead as he cocked his neck and stood on his toes to follow a battlestar as it maneuvered 'under' the station. "I mean, look at that!" He pointed at an older _Columbia_ class battlestar, _Galactica_, gently cruising into a docking collar on the lower pole of the fleet station.

"Because they don't have a Stargate, sir?"

"Or because they seemed fairly content with themselves here? And they tended to fight each other a lot. So that might have been a factor, Jack."

"Yes, thank you Carter, thank you Daniel. It was rhetorical." Jack balled a fist and gently tapped the whatever-it-was type of glass or plastic. "Whoa." A trio of Vipers flew within a couple kilometers of the window towards the northern pole of the station.

The colonel squinted, his breath fogging the window as another ship with a large dome caught his eye. It was being followed by a second and a third before the bright white-blue flashes erupted and they vanished.

O'Neill sighed. He'd counted star liners, freighters, and warships until he'd lost count probably half an hour ago.

The amount of orbital traffic had been staggering. Commander Adama had advised SG1 and SG8, as well as their Tok'ra and Free Jaffa, to view the jump into Caprican orbit from the forward observation compartment, the only compartment with a window on the entire battlestar.

The jump had been spectacular enough. _Valkyrie BSG_ had jumped into high orbit of a gas giant on the periphery of Colonial space, calculated a jump to Caprica, and with the brilliant blue-white flash they were there and here. Instantly a gleaming blue marble of a world, so similar to Earth, and surrounded by space stations, military and civilian that made _Valkyrie_ look like a… the only comparison he could really make was a PT boat next to a _Nimitz_, had appeared.

One moment there, the next here and the best way for O'Neill to describe it wasn't a 'blink of an eye.' Somehow, as Carter had tried to explain, it was instantaneous without the ship existing simultaneously in both places.

"Jack, if you're bored, there is that." O'Neill turned around to see Daniel pointing at the holo-band visor sitting on the table. "It's fun."

The colonel gave it a look. "No, thanks. It's fun and all but a little creepy."

It reminded him of P7J-989 too much, the virtual reality he'd been stuck in, and reliving East Germany over and over.

"You could have gone with Teal'c and SG8 to Picon. They're probably blowing stuff up."

"And let you two wander around unsupervised?" O'Neill grunted. "I think not."

"Well…" Daniel pushed up the sleeve on his jacket- a brown leather one to go with khakis and a collared shirt- and stared at his watch for a few seconds. "If I get permission I'm gonna head down to their university again. You are more than welcome…"

"When Jessica get's back from the surface we're going to where they're keeping everything." Carter said.

"You two are getting chummy."

Carter shrugged.

"You could see Caprica City, Jack. We might also go to Delphi. You couldn't _possibly_ get bored in Caprica City. It's like New York, Paris, and Hong Kong combined. They have a statue of Zeus standing on an artificial island, sort of like the Statue of Liberty. Four hundred meters tall."

"Daniel, please for the love of God just don't piss anyone off," O'Neill pleaded as he meandered back from the window and plopped into the sofa a foot or so from Carter. He snatched up a copy of _Delphi Entertainment Tonight_ that had been translated and started casually flipping through the pages, looking at the pictures. "Everyone's been fairly open minded but you never know when some whack job might get offended. I think we learned our lesson on Bedrosia." The colonel let the magazine rest on his thigh as he looked up towards the overhead. "Ah… being electrocuted in tiny cages… I miss those times."

"Actually, Jack, I have another theory I want to present to them." Daniel waited. And waited. "Aren't you going to ask me what it is?"

O'Neill and Carter exchanged looks.

No one said anything.

"You're supposed to say yes." Daniel finally informed them.

The colonel grinned. "Oh?"

"You remember P7X-337?"

O'Neill shrugged and shook his head. "Whoever names these planets-"

"Oh, God," Carter rolled her eyes. "Here we go."

"Who names them? Seriously. Why not give them a name, like Crystal Skull World, or go by the date we traveled to the world?"

Daniel just looked at his friend. "Why are you complaining if you know what world I'm talking about?"

"Principle of the thing…"

"P7X-337 is the home of the Omeyocans… you called them the Giant Misty Aliens… and now we know that they helped to build the Aztec and Mayan cultures and most likely most of the cultures in the region." O'Neill nodded as Daniel explained. "We know they took humans- the Tollans, Orbanians, and you know the crazy people as you called them on Xakotcan. Now, I don't think the Colonials were transported to Kobol by them but it is possible. When we first activated the gate we believed that _only_ the Goa'uld took humans off Earth and then _only_ the Goa'uld and Asgard and then _only_ the Goa'uld, Asgard, and Omeyocans. So why not a fourth race?"

Daniel could tell Carter was intrigued with the raised eyebrows. And she'd stopped reading the comp sheet Major Amorak had given her the other day.

"That's true, Daniel, but who?" Carter asked. "They don't seem like they want to believe you. If their Thirteenth Tribe landed on Earth forty-five hundred years ago and they can trace their history on Kobol back to before Ra discovered Earth it sort of throws off your theory."

"That's where the fourth race comes in and I admit I have no evidence. But it is possible there could have been other races out there seeding worlds."

O'Neill wasn't impressed. "That doesn't have a lot of evidence, though, just circumstantial."

Daniel tapped a pen on the coffee table holding his note pads. "Well somehow they knew about Earth. And they had advanced space travel thousands of years ago, so either they visited Earth in the past and then brought knowledge of it back to Kobol and it got mixed up in their legends and myths somehow, or someone or something brought the name of 'Earth' to Kobol." He sucked in a breath. "But I also have to admit they have so much history it's difficult sorting through and on top of that, it's incomplete. And then there's the whole issue of having ships and people named after things from all over Earth's ancient cultures… at least Europe and Asia. I don't think I've heard any African or American."

"Well, however they got here, I'm more concerned with how they'll get us back to Earth," O'Neill replied instead of debating Colonial origins. That was Daniel's area. "It's what… October 24th on Earth now? We left August 10th… but maybe it'll be worth it if we can get an ally like these people."

"When SG8 and Teal'c get back, sir, you can ask them about the Colonial Army."

O'Neill snickered. "If their military is proportional to their population like ours is do you know how many people that is? Anyway, Daniel, you seem to be less suspicious."

"Well, Jack, you trust the military. It's a different culture, way of life, both of you know that. Seeing their civilian population and how people interact with each other and how people live their lives out of uniform, off a battlestar is the best way to judge the character of a people."

"And you've liked what you've seen." Jack observed.

"For the most part… they're a bit more austere than we are." The other two could tell he'd turned on lecture mode. O'Neill exchanged a look with Carter but both sat silent and still, knowing Daniel had to get it out. "A lot of the politics you'd find on Earth simply aren't present here. And some you won't find on Earth are here. And it's difficult to associate their political parties with left or right wing based on our definitions. Their society seems both militaristic, secretive, and driven by security with a strong reverence towards their gods and at the same time there are strong pacifist movements, drug laws are somewhat lax, and they have little social restrictions against sex or homosexuality. Some of the stuff here might make Hue Hefner blush. But here it's part of their religion; having sex with the priestesses at the Temple of Aphrodite is basically the same as going to church for us. Animal sacrifice is still in practice and I've noticed that many think nothing of going to a temple three, four times a week or more and praying."

Daniel took a breath. "While they're unified the planets still have some vastly different cultures, and I've seen the strains. Picon was a military dictatorship and basically still is, Virgon is an aristocracy in transition, Gemenon is a democratic theocracy, Aquaria is a loose confederacy of nearly a hundred regions, Caprica violently overthrew its monarchy centuries ago… the list goes on. And then there's dozens, hundreds of independence movements ranging from regional to planetary to independence for some moons and asteroids. Ironically it's their _military_ which has been the most progressive and idealistic about a unified Colonial government. From the historical documents I've read the Tauron military was the first to propose unification, not the civilians, and it was a Caprican admiral who accepted. Though whether that's for the good of the Colonies or the good of the military…" he ignored the groan from O'Neill.

"The military itself is dominated by dynastic families, with a comparison to Prussia more than suitable, as is much of their politics. And somewhat worrisome is that the majority of their planets unified by conquest rather than peaceful federation. And these thirty five years after the Cylon War have been the longest period of peace between the Colonies or on any colony since they arrived.

"Thankfully it seems they adhere to many of the same ideals we do; liberty, freedom and they recognized the differences in planetary cultures would make a complete unification impossible. They're sort of in between a confederacy and a federation, evident by the different forms of planetary government between the Colonies.

"Basically, culturally, I think they're the south mixed with Europe."

"That was… extensive, Daniel, thank you," Sam said with a smile.

Daniel waited for Jack, but the colonel was just staring forward. "Jack… any input?"

"I could've summed that up in three words."

"Yeah?"

"Guns, gods, sex."

Daniel just sort of looked at him like he was tired. "I guess if you wanted to sum it up like that. Though some of it…" he shrugged, "I still want to dig around their archives some more and see what I can find about Kobol. There's stuff down there they're not letting me touch."

"Yeah," Jack agreed, "some stuff… like the temple was just a little creepy."

"The bull sacrifice?" Carter asked. Daniel nodded. "Yeah, that sort of made me a little queasy."

"I guess animal rights aren't too popular," O'Neill quipped. He saw the look his two friends gave him and he held up his hands defensively. "Okay, I was grossed out. Bad Colonials, bad."

Daniel sighed. His research was getting to the point of being tedious. Even he could admit that. At least at the SGC he had assistants or he could dial up Earth and call in another SG research team if he needed it. But not here he kept reminding himself.

"I' like to go to Gemenon and see their Pantheon," Daniel said, "I was told it's the largest temple, or series of temples in the Colonies. It'd be neat to see what they were able to bring from Kobol."

O'Neill yawned. "I guess we can put that on the itinerary."

"Why don't you see if you can go on this?" Daniel leaned down and grabbed an open magazine and tossed it to Jack, who grabbed it in mid air. "Touch the little red circle on the bottom."

There was an ad with half a dozen people in skimpy space suits posing over some sort of cross between a car and some lunar vehicle. Yeah, sex sold, O'Neill thought, as the women seemed to have specially made space suits with plastic boob armor. O'Neill was surprised that they'd even translated ads:

'_Come Join Us on Geidi for a Day of Lunar Fun! Thirty Percent Off All Lunar Buggy Expeditions!'_

He touched the circle and the people vanished, replaced by half a dozen buggies racing across the airless landscape, stopped, and then repeated, flashing 'thirty percent off' messages.

"I think they're trying to bribe us. Daniel, they give you access to stuffy old libraries. Carter, they give you access to the Goa'uld technology."

"You guys got to go and watch a nuke test from Premie's Raptor, sir." Carter almost sounded envious.

"Well, yeah, but that was fun."

"So basically a 'Look How Great We Are' sort of thing?" Daniel mocked, waving his hands beside his face. "And the fun stuff they let you and the others do is… blowing stuff up? Just don't go and get aged by nanites or anything like _that_ again."

"Like I'm the only one who ever gets in trouble… _Daniel_."

"Well, no, I didn't say no one else got in trouble. But you do tend to get in _more_ trouble… you were aged a lifetime in a matter of days, you were made into a Jaffa, you were cloned by blue crystals, taken control of by that orb thing from P5C-353, your mind was copied into a robot, downloaded a database into your mind-"

"Alright, I get it. But I think you're jealous, Daniel. You realized staying and burying your nose in a book wasn't as fun as me and T doing… other things, funer-er things." He shifted his eyes.

Daniel was stuck half way between just giving up and slouching on his chair or leaning forward, scooting to the front of his seat and ready to start talking about cultural theories as how they pertained to Colonial development in relation to the ancient Mediterranean world.

O'Neill, cross legged and eyes firmly out of focused though was saved by a hard knock at the hatch, the sound magnified by the cold gray bulkheads of their quarters.

Carter got up all too quickly to go and answer. She punched the automatic release and the hatch split down the middle and disappeared in its bulkhead alcove.

"Captain Upland, it's been a while," Carter exclaimed.

It had been weeks since they'd last seen the captain. On _Valkyrie_ she saw them three, four, five or more times a day. After the battlestar had docked she'd departed the ship for somewhere rather suddenly. Then the other personnel from FID, Section Seven, and Section Nine had jumped aboard. The Tok'ra and Jaffa and Rhadmet had been whisked away the moment the umbilical connected.

Melicia Upland appeared with a slight tan and her hair was a bit more full and wavy then the last time SG1 had seen her. Her hair was pulled back, behind her shoulders in a braided ponytail, and her uniform was immaculate as always. She held a computer tablet in her left hand, hanging it by her thigh.

She looked over Sam's shoulder. "Oh, wow, they put you all into a room with a window."

"Actually, this is mine. Colonel O'Neill is down the corridor and Teal'c is…" Carter's head cocked to the side, "I don't think it's too important.

"They're giving you the VIP treatment, major."

In the room O'Neill looked over his shoulder. "I think your people are trying to spoil us to get us to talk."

Carter invited her in.

"Yes, sir," Upland yelled back, a slight facetious tone coating her words. "I'm glad everything seems to be working out."

"So, what brings you to our neck to the space station?" O'Neill asked, standing up and shoving his hands into the pockets of his SGC BDUs.

The colonel was glad to have his SGU BDUs back instead of the Colonial variant, which were nice and breathed well, were airy and light, but just didn't feel _comfortable_ like these did. And they didn't have his name on the label.

"First, I want to apologize for sort of abandoning you when _Valkyrie_ docked but I was on an assignment, dealing with some other situations which have arisen since our return. The destruction of _Attia_ has been covered up, for now, but with so many thousands dead or wounded it's going to get out eventually. So I'm here to just to tell you you might want to prepare for that."

"Why?" Daniel asked.

"We're having a harder and harder time covering it up. BSG's coming and going's routine but military enthusiasts camp out in their space ships and like to record ships returning. The damage to the hulls of _Pan _and _Chios _were damaged too extensively for mobile dockyards. We'd have had to bring them into our fleet stations sooner or later… and the Quorum Security Commission is riding our asses hard on this. Half of them want a reprisal against Sokar now and half want to do everything possible to not piss off the snakes any more out of fear of the Cylons." Upland paused and set down a tablet computer on the coffee table. "May I?" She motioned at the seat.

"Please," O'Neill said.

The colonel could see Upland was frustrated under the glow she was trying to project was superficial.

She probably felt like he did, exhausted and frustrated, after the first mission to Chulak.

"There's also ten thousand people who know of aliens now and there's too many dead from all the ships in our BSG to make the cover story stick. _Valkyrie_ suffered over eighty-five dead and _Pan_ nearly two hundred. The personnel loss on _Chios_ was total minus the Vipers and Raptors that were flying. There's no explanation we can give for so many deaths across the BSG… our ships don't fly that close enough together just in case a tyllium or magazine explosion occurs." She took a breath. "And the _Sterope_ BSG has nearly twenty-six thousand people… while we kept the specific mission need-to-know and restricted to the command staffs, you don't just scramble twelve warships for no reason and send them to the gods end of nowhere."

Tapping the power button Upland turned the tablet so everyone could see. Major Carter was standing behind them, hunched over the couch, and Daniel and O'Neill to her left and right.

"That's a lot of people," O'Neill said, getting a nod back from Daniel and raised eyebrows from Carter.

"Major Carter, when we asked for more Stargate addresses you told us your computers were calculating stellar drift, so out of thousands you only had hundreds available-"

Colonel O'Neill interrupted. "Remembering more than a few dozen is next to impossible. Especially if we barely go there… we couldn't tell you the closest gate to the Colonies because we don't know."

Upland nodded. "Yes, sir, I didn't mean to imply any deception. You only have hundreds available and it would be incredibly difficult to memorize them with only casual use. But Goa'uld have genetic knowledge. They can remember anything. This is from an interrogation of Nizsim."

The screen lit up with a video of Upland and Nizsim and focused out from the FID captain and steadied on Nizsim.

"_Teal'c told us the Tok'ra originated as a resistance against Ra and gradually spread to resist all Goa'uld. Why did you defect from Sokar's forces?"_

The Tok'ra was wearing his death glider vacuum suit, but had had everything removed from it. He spoke in the gravelly voice of the symbiote.

"_I was never 'in' Sokar's fleet."_ There was a moment of silence. "_I joined some years ago as part of my long-term assignment from the Tok'ra High Council. An operative saw the military build-up and assumed Sokar would attack the System Lords as retribution for his banishment. I was to assume a role in his domain and when a target presented itself, destroy it."_

"_You sabotaged Herikropolis?"_

"_Yes."_

"_How do we know this isn't an elaborate ruse, Nizsim?"_

The Tok'ra looked annoyed. "_Without the sabotage you would have been destroyed."_

"_So why did you help us?"_

"_There are few races who can oppose the Goa'uld openly. Many of them have treaties of non-aggression with the System Lords. I saw your ships and after witnessing the ferocity… brutality in which you killed the Jaffa to rescue your people, hoped you would be one of those peoples to stand against him."_

"_Were you responsible for the attack on our forces?"_

"_No. That was Rhadmet, the Goa'uld you captured. He was responsible. He scanned your ships using a long range device from the surface and believed he could destroy you. Obviously he underestimated you… I can show you how to counter the scans."_

"_Yes, we'd appreciate that_." A hand appeared and it slid a small computer tablet towards the Tok'ra. "_That red dot is the location of the battle. The green is the location of Alpha, the planet where our ship crashed. I assume you are familiar with astro-navigation?"_

There was a nod. "_All Tok'ra have the genetic knowledge. Navigating the stars is natural to us."_

"_We need a show of good faith, Nizsim. Show us the locations of the nearest Stargates. The nearest and safest Stargates… and everything you know of them."_

Captain Upland turned off the video and pulled up a document similar to Word with Stargate addresses. She highlighted five addresses and tapped another key and a map appeared on the television sitting in Carter's quarters.

Five planets with addresses over them were visible.

"We've located the nearest Stargate." She highlighted on which appeared 'above' and to the right of the main cluster of three, with a fourth far to the left and down. "_Argus_, a stealth battlestar is already refueling. Colonel O'Neill, you and Teal'c have been requested by Fleet Admiral Ordinus to meet with him in three days prior to boarding _Argus_… which will leave in a week." They shared a brief moment of silence. "We're going to get you all home."

* * *

AN: With the electronic warfare it was something I added to make the Goa'uld a bit more "realistic"/"competent." I figure they've come against enemies who have used such weapons in the past, like a modern Earth equivalent, and just neutralize advanced weaponry, giving them free reign. That could be one reason why most everyone uses plasma and energy weapons, can't jam those.

The X-301 was also stated as being invisible to radar (unless it had a special beacon active) so I used that and figured the Goa'uld are aware of the technology less advanced races have and the threat even "primitive" technology like radar and missile could pose, so they compensated for that.

Then they basically got content.

With disclosure... we'll see. ;-)

A little tidbit on the next chapter; we'll see how the SGC is faring in the war against Sokar.

Thank you for reading!


	12. Chapter 12

AN: Thank you everyone for the reviews and the additions to the favorites/alerts!

This chapter is a bit violent (probably rated a big M) with the first scene set in Memta. Prison cities/Goa'uld are very dark places.

With the Colonials interrogating the SG personnel I wouldn't say it's any more harsh than SGC interrogations. Just a lot of repeat questions, details, and stuff like that.

* * *

**Prison City of Memta**

**Domain of Sokar**

Fire. Sokar loved fire, long ago he had embraced it and made it his own, his symbol. In nature fire could be the great destroyer or the great purifier. Fire brought both death and continued the cycle of life. But only the naïve or brainwashed would believe Lord Sokar would utilize fire for anything but pain and torture and as an instrument of fear to keep his slaves and domains under the bloody heel of his lordship.

In the faraway prison city of Memta fire imagery was almost absent. In its place was a dull gray world of blackened soil which turned to sucking mud during the torrential downpours and suffocating humidity. Like Netu, there were volcanoes, long dormant, spewing not ash and lava, but noxious gas.

Unlike Netu Memta resided on an inhabitable world, an industrial world, but was isolated by arid deserts filled with poisonous creatures, dangerous mountain ranges with snow drift dozens of meters deep, and a thrashing sea long dead from industrial pollution.

Memta was an ancient and vast city which once held millions of some old and long forgotten civilization. Some sort of creatures, two and a half meters tall, claws for feet and double-thumbed hands, large heads with small beaks, and powerful and muscular torsos with broad shoulders had once inhabited this world. Now they were dead and their surviving city, their legacy, was used as a prison. Their skeletons could be found from time to time by the prisoners, wrenched up from the ground by earthquakes or prisoners digging for anything valuable, often bones to create stabbing weapons.

The city itself sprawled over thousands of square kilometers. Buildings were made of black or gray stones and steel with maroons, oranges, and yellow colors. But the colors were faded. The streets ranged from wide enough to fit hundreds shoulder to shoulder to alleys so narrow one had to shimmy sideways through. Buildings collapsed and were rebuilt by prisoners into small fortresses.

Gangs had carved territory, roving war bands attacked each other, taking prisoners and slaves. It was lawless and brutal.

These extinct aliens had also built down. Tunnels, caverns, and entire communities resided under the ground, stretching for hundreds of meters below the city streets. Abandoned subways, motorways, access tunnels, sewers, shelters and more than could ever be explored in a dozen lifetimes littered the underground.

The wildlife was dangerous, the plant life toxic. Large predators roamed the streets at night and some braved the daylight and ventured out, making their patterns unpredictable. Only two local plants were edible, the first being a strange red and orange potato and the second some sort of crunchy cross of a vine and tree. The latter had to be boiled.

Some food and supplies were dropped by tel'tak shuttles which ran constantly over the city. At random intervals death gliders would swoop down from the stars and take pot shots at anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the open. Every so often a legion of Jaffa would move through the city in a tight bang, hunting prisoners, honing their skills. The Necropolis Guard sometimes used Memta as a training ground; drop prospective Guardsmen in the city with a knife and zat'nik'tel. If they survived and killed a dozen men they were worthy of indoctrination into Sokar's crimson-clad body guard and elite storm trooper legion.

Supplies, clothes, anything of value were hoarded by gangs and strongmen with fierce cults of personality keeping their minions in line. The weaker men and women sent to Memta were forced to join these gangs as expendable soldiers, servants- slaves in truth, or prostitutes.

Everything revolved around on rule: strength. Those who had it, either by sheer force of personality or physical strength thrived. Those without succumbed to those who did. The more fortunate indebted themselves to the strong for scraps of food and drink and the hope they wouldn't be captured and tortured by their enemies or brutally murdered or raped by roving bands of animalistic thugs.

There was one key difference between Memta and Netu; one could be redeemed here. Netu had been a prison of despair, where the criminals and disappointments and traitors were sent to die in agony or live in pain and suffering. Memta offered salvation in the hope that one day, maybe, just maybe, Lord Sokar may grant a prisoner clemency.

Goa'uld had been sent here before. Some had returned. Some had tried to establish their own gangs and criminal armies in their natural Goa'uld obsession with power. But many had died…

Sacmis gasped as the hot air burned at her lungs. She could barely open her eyes, they were swollen and bruised. She felt isolated, alone, like a caged beast, a slave. There was blackness all around. How long had she been unconscious? All she could remember was the bastard Neberatu attacking her with his kara kesh…

The heat and humidity forced her clothes to stick to her body, the damp garments brown and black as dirt became trapped, coating her in a thin layer of filth. She could feel the dirt and rocks beneath her bare arms and legs… and she felt hands wrapping around her legs, rocks tearing into her flesh, as she was pulled.

Voices. Angry voices laced with barbaric curses and slime. They _hated _her. There was another pair of hands. Cursing. Something was on her chest, pushing her down, a knee? She felt the hand released and her clothes rip down at her waist. One hand on each thigh forced her legs opened.

She opened her eyes, about to speak, to command them off and then kill them. Sacmis only squeaked before she felt pain as a man clutched her hair- she tried to grab his hands but her arms were too weak to overcome the leverage- and slammed her head back into a rock. She felt a warm, thick wetness on the back of her neck and then… blackness…

Her eyes show open and she gasped.

"Fucking bitch…" she heard one of them spit, saliva and spittle spat onto her face. "Get her awake! I want her to _feel it all_!"

Despite the head she shivered from the acidic tone as he mind tried to make sense of what was happening.

Sacmis saw the man. He was big, powerful and muscular, a brute with scars and gunshot wounds ill-healed. An eye was missing and only half an ear remained. His hair was long and raggy and he was on his knees, his pants down, using one hand to get ready.

"Do it," came the voice from behind her, pinning the arms. More spit fell on her face. "Look at her clothes. She's a fucking pet for the snake heads." Sacmis saw the alien, a Serrakin with a Jaffa's skull helmet, snarling at her.

"Don't fucking kill her." Another man, just as gruesome and helping to hold her down said, his stink and breath in her face. He was shorter, but just as stocky as the one straddling her. He ran his tongue along the side of her cheek. "They're so much better when they fight back." He grabbed her breast and squeezed and ripped at the dress. His finger nails tore into her skin, ripping more of the dress.

"Release-" she whispered and screamed as she felt a thrust.

The scream was horrid, bone chilling, and sent the men scrambling off her. The almost synthetic sound of the Goa'uld inside her, wounded and weakened, couldn't take the pain. The Goa'uld symbiote could feel the pain of the human body and it was in agony.

"She's a fucking-" there was a crash and a scream. The men scrambled off her.

Sacmis felt something heavy fall on her stomach. The man who'd licked her, his eyes were wide, staring straight into hers. And his head was open, crimson red blood seeping from the wound and pooling onto her stomach.

She pushed him off and scrambled, using her hands and kicking her legs, and back crawled away from the two men who were left. Another had come, a tall man, one Sacmis couldn't see and draped in a mix of gray pants and greaves, with heavy boots and a ripped shirt with one gauntlet on the right forearm. The one-eyed man threw a punch, only to be blocked and countered with a jab to the throat by the tall man. He fell back, clutching at his neck and falling to his knees.

The Serrakin attacked this strange man and threw a punch, slamming his fist into the man's jaw, only to be countered with a punch straight into the gut. The Serrakin recovered quickly and managed to block a knee and a kick. The alien kicked back, missing and swung a wide hook, missing again as the man ducked and blocked and threw a fast uppercut, lifting the Serrakin onto his toes.

The aliens were adept at physical fighting. Their heads had thick layers of bones and their brains cushioned in more fluid than a humans. They could take trauma which would give a human a concussion and still keep going.

The Serrakin stepped back, staggering and almost tripping over a rock but recovered and kicking back and catching the other in the chest the tall man staggered away but pushed off from a boulder. The serrakin tried to kick again but the tall man caught the ankle, brought an elbow down in one swift, lighting and blurred motion, and lifted and pulled, knocking the Serrakin to the ground.

Something snapped and the man rolled on his back, clutching his arm with a bone's jagged edge sticking out after ripping through flesh and cloth.

The tall man kicked him in the ribs and her attacker yelped in pain and curled into a ball. Another kick broke more ribs and he yelled again. The man picked up a rock and kneeled and raised his arm. With an almost superhuman strength he smashed the rock upon the man's head over and over and over until nothing was left except a completely shattered skull and red mush and paste from a pulverized brain.

The one who'd violated her like a common slave was still gagging and rolling on the ground. He wouldn't recover.

"Salatis…" the tall man said, coming forward and kneeling. He immediately took his jacket off and draped it around the Goa'uld. "Salatis Sacmis."

On hearing her name the Goa'uld's head suddenly cocked back, face-to-face and eye-to-eye with her loyal Jaffa. She felt her strength return. Her eyes pulsed a golden-white. She could see him. "Hai'tar… I didn't believe Neberatu would spare you."

"He has, Salatis," Hai'tar bowed his head and kept his eyes away from her, on a dirt spot now soaking with the blood of one of her attackers. "I have-"

"Look at me."

"It is improper in your current state mistress-"

Her face was barren of emotion as she looked over her host body. Already she was healing this shell she had become so attached to. And her eyes narrowed to slits and pulsed gold-white as they fell on her attacker. Her eyes lingered on the man, still on the ground, gagging and clutching his throat.

With one hand on the ground and the other on Hai'tar's shoulder she pushed herself up, letting the leather coat fall. Her dress was still torn and her body still exposed. But now she was in control and she could feel the strength returning to her. Slowly and with deliberate steps she walked towards the gurgling and dying man intent on quickening his arrival in whatever underworld he believed in or just ending his existence if he believed in none.

She grabbed him with one hand and lifted him up by the collar.

Sacmis threw him back down.

"Hai'tar." The Jaffa came and stood behind her, still diverting her eyes. She kneeled down and sat on her heels, overlooking her attacker, whom she pulled closer and up, close to her mouth. "Watch the power of the Goa'uld."

She pinched the man's mouth open and covered his mouth with hers.

Sacmis, the real Sacmis, slid from the woman's body into the man's.

The man- Sacmis- propped himself up, keeping his former body from slumping. Sacmis had destroyed the mind of that woman. She was an empty husk, reduced to nothing more than a grown infant without the Goa'uld inside of her.

Now it was this one's turn.

She could see everything about this man. From his childhood to how he came to be in Memta. She learned the maze of tunnels below the surface and the city above. She learned where shuttles dropped food, where Jaffa hunted prisoners, and what animals and plants were toxic and which animals had the courage to hunt a human.

She learned the power structure of the gangs and roving bands of thugs. She knew everything and had everything she would need from this man.

The one exception was her revenge. This man had the audacity to attack her. Now he must pay for his crimes and sins.

"_What is this!"_ Someone screamed.

Sacmis smiled.

"_Be calm, Turlin of Vack Pra."_ Sacmis wrapped her invisible fingers around the man's mind. She could feel his conscious, his very essence and personality squirm as two minds battled for the control of one body. "_This is the true power of the Goa'uld, Turlin. You defiled my host, took me for human, attempted to break her. Killing you would be so… delicious… satisfying… but what I am about to do will be far worse, for you, than killing you…"_

He sensed what she was trying to do. She could feel his mind struggling against hers.

She found the one spark of consciousness which made every human unique. That part of the personality which could either be suppressed or destroyed.

"_What the fuck are you doing, you fucking snake bitch! I'll fucking- ah… ahh… gahh!"_

"_It's impossible to resist me, Turlin. You're not that strong… despite your arrogance. I know everything about you. I know how you murdered your first man at the age of sixteen, how you stole from your parents and beat your mother and how you killed your brother and stole his shuttle to run drugs and guns for the Lucians. The only woman who ever loved you left you when she found out what a monster you truly were, taking your only child. I know everything about you, Turlin."_

"_Get the fuck out of my mind!"_

"_I will…"_ she continued her work.

"_What are you doing you slimy snake bi-"_

His mind was fading. With a disturbing precision she erected the mental barriers and destroyed his free will. What seemed like infinity took mere moments, minutes, for the Goa'uld to achieve.

"_I'm almost done, Turlin, be calm …"_ she whispered in his mind in a melody of explanation.

"_What… are you… doing?"_ Turlin struggled to think.

He was in pain.

"_Some call it the Living Death; others just call it 'pain', Turlin."_ She said softly, almost whispering. "_I'm going to leave you soon. You will be broken. Your mind will be locked away, destroyed. I'm leaving enough so you will be able to experience your world. But you will be able to do nothing but see the world around you, unable to command your own body. Your mind will be your prison; you will have no conscious control."_

Turlin tried to move his arms and legs to flee. The body didn't respond.

"_No… no! No!"_

The screams faded quickly until they were nothing more than a faint sound in the mind of the Goa'uld.

It had been quick, painless for Sacmis, but tiring. Sacmis would leave him now and return to the battered body across from Turlin.

Sacmis grabbed his old host and slithered back from the attacker into the female body. She felt at ease, the strange feeling of being in the other body gone, preferring the beauty and elegance of a female body to the burly and cumbersome body of a man. Her eyes flashed gold-white. Her hand once again pinched Turlin's jaw.

For a long minute both she and Hai'tar were there in silence, her hand still grasping Turlin and applying just enough pressure to cause him a great deal of pain without breaking his jaw. She could feel her Jaffa towering over her, watching her, his body casting a long dark shadow over her and Turlin.

Her eyes flashed.

There was a crack on the corner of her lips. A smile. She leaned in to his ear. Her hot breath prickled the hairs on the back of his sweaty and dirt-covered neck. "You're still in there, Turlin…" she could feel his breath increase as the tip of her nose touched his skin, "_enjoy_ this, enjoy your suffering."

"Salatis-"

"I am no longer a Salatis, Hai'tar." She said with her back still to him. She heard him shuffle away and come back a moment later.

"Clothes, my lady." Hai'tar laid them down and back away, turning and diverting his eyes once again.

She ripped her ratty and torn dress from her shoulders and threw on the pants and shirt and jacket from the Serrakin. Sacmis had to tie the belt she was handed to keep the pants from falling. She didn't need a mirror to tell her she looked ridiculous. With a long look at her jewelry she took the pieces off and for a moment as she stared at the gleaming metals and stones in her palm considered tossing them away, only to close her fist and push them into a deep pocket.

"Who survived?"

"I found the body of another. His symbiote had been removed and his throat slit."

Sacmis tilted her head, studying Turlin as she accessed the knowledge she had forcefully taken from the pitiful fool.

"This man has been here years, Hai'tar, decades. He's seen the city and knows of places… weapons, food…" she snorted, "and he had a plan to escape… futile due to its moronic simplicity but still brave of him to even consider such a thing." She ran a backhand on his cheeks. "His eyes…"

His eyes showed her the mind was still buried and locked away but watching and yelling at his body to stand and flee from the Goa'uld. But it could only watch, only react to command.

"What do we do now, mistress? Our Lord Sokar has forsaken us to this city of death."

Sacmis considered his question for a moment. There was a calm serenity to this scene of him and her standing over her dead or captured attackers, in a cavern which was dark and foreboding and smelled of blood and death.

The red-blue glow from the artificial veins implanted in their underground city by the aliens cast an eerie light on the three. Sacmis kept looking back at Turlin as the broken man sat on the ground, his eyes shaking, only just, but shaking nonetheless.

There were only a handful of ways for Sacmis to survive on this world. A Goa'uld with the genetic memory of a queen wielded a powerful resource on a world filled with the broken and decrepit. But in the land of the blind, the one-eyed woman was queen.

She had faced enemies large and small, warships and death gliders, aliens and humans and had come out victorious. Closing her eyes she still saw her star in ascent. This was nothing more than a momentary set back, an obstacle of circumstance and nepotism. The sins committed against her only fueled that internal fire, stoked the flames, and when she released that fire, would burn her enemies to cinders.

Sacmis opened her eyes and took a breath, wiping sweat and grime and dried blood from her scraped forehead.

"I swore loyalty to Lord Sokar, Hai'tar. Neberatu banished us here but spoke for our lord. We have been wronged. I have no more loyalty for either." She walked forward to the edge of the cavern, to the entrance of a tunnel made of old stone and elaborate mosaic tile. She knew the way now. "Bring him." She kept her body facing the tunnel but extended her arm behind her back and jabbed her finger at Turlin. "He should be able to walk if forced… but what do we do now? You are a loyal Jaffa and you are my second, Hai'tar." She stood with the self-confidence, the arrogance of a Goa'uld, so sure of herself. There was no doubt, none at all. To doubt herself would be… _human_. "We will take control of Memta and forge its prisoners into an army. They will follow me or die. And then we will return to Delmak where I shall crucify Neberatu… and where I shall burn Lord Sokar again and again for ten thousand years. Their pain will be my strength and their screams my… _serenity_."

* * *

**Colonial Fleet Headquarters, the Aegis**

**City of Augustus, Picon**

An uneasy silence had fallen over Admiral Corman's office. Commander Cain sat patiently as the admiral's eyes had seemed to glaze over and stare at his coffee, like something was inherently wrong with the cup of steaming light brown liquid.

"Sir, if I may, is there something troubling you?" Commander Cain asked as she leaned back in her chair. "You haven't touched the coffee, sir." She pointed at the cup and moved one of her comp sheets to her left, to make a little more room on his desk.

"I'm sorry." He shook his head to clear it. "The time difference between Picon and Caprica can be rough." He licked his lips. "Especially with a stop on Tauron to Planetary HQ… I've had more caffeine today than all last week probably," he snickered.

"If you want to go home, sir…" she checked her watch and did a quick calculation, "you've been up for almost two days. I can handle the paper work and send out the orders. Testifying to the sub-committee can be tough, especially when Delegate Shaw and Delegate Trellos get into ideological shoving matches. I've witnessed enough of them to know that it can be an exercise."

"In futility," Corman chuckled. He closed his eyes for a second, breathing in and letting the cooler air of his office help wake him.

Caprica and Picon were off on their day-night rotations by six hours. Throwing Tauron into the mix basically meant the admiral had seen two days on continuous sunlight and this time of the year in Picon's rotation the twin stars of the Helios binary system made nights almost unbearably short for a man who already wasn't getting enough sleep.

Since he was commander of the entire Sixth Fleet the emergency situation with the Goa'uld had forced him off planet nearly a dozen times since _Valkyrie_ jumped back. Trips to Myrmidon, Aether, and a quick hop to the Molecay to confer with his opposites at First, Fifth, Ninth, and Tweltfth Fleet and a quick jaunt to Canceron, Caprica, and Libra had meant he was working off maybe an average of four hours of sleep a night now.

It was also hurricane season and three storms were slowly working their way in from the southern oceans up the coast, which probably added to the admiral's stress. The unfortunate reality of building anything on Picon was that nothing was out of reach of hurricanes. Picon's landmasses were relatively small, with no large continents like Caprica or Tauron, and the planet was nearly eighty-three percent water.

"Yes, sir," Cain said with a grin. 'Futility, indeed,' she mouthed. There were some on the Quorum she had a great deal of respect for; Delegate Marta Shaw was a woman Helena Cain respected. Delegate Alexis Trellos was not. "Honestly, sir, I'm glad I wasn't there. Trellos is a weasel." She saw the admiral just looking down at his desk. "Sir… sir?" She had to repeated herself a third time. "Sir?"

She frowned, concerned at the admiral's demeanor. It was odd, strange for him to be so preoccupied and seemingly out of it. Cain had known the admiral to go days if he had to. The last Sixth Fleet exercises he'd played judge and gone with no sleep for two and a half days.

Helena had been growing more concerned over the past few weeks that the admiral was going to exhaust himself and seriously compromise his ability to perform his duty. The stealth ship mission, _Night Owl_ operations, and the Goa'uld were taking a heavy toll on all Sixth Fleet command staff. Helena remembered the last day she'd had off from work was about… oh, four weeks ago. Eighteen hours days had been the norm since contact was reestablished with _Valkryie_.

And to top off her concern was Gerhard, his yeoman, had commented that the admiral needed to be reminded to eat breakfast and dinner. He only ate lunch without reminders because he was expected in the senior officer's wardroom to dine with his staff.

"Oh, sorry… distracted?" He looked up, slightly surprised his mind had wandered. "No… well, yes… I was just thinking… about Maria Kemeneos." He kept his voice low despite it being only the two of them in his office.

"Lieutenant Admiral Kemeneos, sir?" Cain was a bit surprised to find out he was 'thinking about' her. She sat up on hearing the unintentional inflection, now slightly embarrassed to inadvertently imply impropriety.

Admiral Corman caught the tone in her voice and raised a hand from the desk at the wrist, waving away the thought of a break in regulation. "She was a friend and I was her first CO when she graduated from Raptor school. I… received word this morning that she committed suicide in her home on Aquaria. She'd requested a few days of leave and neighbors heard a gunshot. She shot herself in the head." Corman finished matter-of-fact. "Dead before the paramedics arrived."

"I don't believe it," Cain said, surprised. "Admiral Kemeneos was a strong woman… I had her at the Academy as a military philosophy professor… professional, hard… passionate. I can't see her _killing herself_," Cain finished, still in disbelief. "Everyone loved her class and respected her."

Corman rubbed his forehead and brought an index finger and thumb together, pinching the skin slightly before letting the hand fall back to his lap.

"Did you hear the news last month when an AV Air Liner transport crashed on Canceron?" Cain nodded. "Everyone died. Her husband and son were aboard."

"Gods."

"She was being investigated for espionage and treason."

"Espionage? Treason? I don't believe it." Then for a second she had her doubts. She knew men and women could be turned. The right price. Or the right threat. "For whom?"

"Section Seven was vague on the details. But it appeared to be a group opposed to unification. They found hidden accounts with nearly two million qubits… and apparently she had debts, heavy debts... her husband had lost his business during the last recession… And her father was a fierce opponent of permanent unification and despised the alliances and blamed Caprica and Tauron for starting the Cylon War." He paused for a breath. "She was estranged from him after joining the military." He blew into the coffee, cooling it, and finally took a sip. "But that's a personal issue and I apologize, commander."

There was a moment where neither moved. The calm and silence was broken by one of the blue ocean hawks swooping by the building, its piercing wail heard through the thick glass of Corman's office. The blue ocean hawks were opportunistic predators, hunting by the coast for raycliff shimmer fish which sparkled in the moonlight or during the day for the large and fatty dart fish.

"I reviewed the transcripts from the sub-committee hearing," Cain said, searching the comp sheet for her notes and to bring up the transcript and minimize it to the taskbar for later. Getting the admiral onto another subject would be a good distraction to ease a man with the weight of worlds on his shoulders. "They're definitely trying to pawn off responsibility for this away from the government and onto the military."

Corman grunted. "True. Our system works when everything runs smooth, providing us with near autonomy… until something gets screwed up and the politicians want someone's head. Delegate Shaw kept an open mind on the situation. She's actually interested in Earth, unlike most of them who are apathetic… wondering how much…" he shook his head, waving a hand. "Nevermind."

"Delegate Vern wants us to drop the Earthers off at the nearest Stargate and wash our hands of this mess."

"They see the potential there for political opponents to use Earth to get votes. And Doctor Baltar delivered a very rousing speech that he will be able to crack the secrets of Goa'uld technology without the help of the Earth personnel." Corman sighed. "If we can establish contact with Earth we could jump start our reverse engineering of Goa'uld technology. Major Carter's been helpful, but she has her own loyalties to consider, which is understandable."

Cain nodded. "The equipment we captured is being divided up to the various research agencies and contractors."

"And if you'll remember, Helena, Delegate Vern receives considerable support from Frontline Aerospace. Their black works division has already bid on leasing the staff weapons and zat'nik'tels. I don't know Earth laws but if Frontline can figure out the secrets to weapons without help from Earth scientists, legally… they get the royalties and licensing fees and don't have to share." He scratched his nose, frowning at the coffee and then rubbed his right temple. "Legal issues… I'd give up this rank for the simplicity of a battlestar," he sighed. "The companies with clearance want to _pay us_ to get hold of this tech. That's a win-win for those who are concerned about our… in their words, 'ballooning budgets.'" He waged a finger. "This whole situation is perfect to be manipulated by everyone on the left and right, our own allies, too… and I'm concerned that they'd inadvertently make our jobs more difficult. Fleet R&D can handle a significant portion, but private companies don't really have the budget battles we face in the PC every year to contend with."

"Use the issue for votes… or try and use Earth for their own gain," Cain point out. She racked her mind, thinking of a few ways. "I can see a few… the Urten on Virgon." Corman nodded. "The more radical Gemenese are always a thorn is everyone's side…"

She'd had a few dealings with the Urten Confederation, a semi-autonomous state on Virgon which still elected its own prime minister and house of representatives. They were known throughout the Colonies as cut-throat bankers who used to go into other colonies or nation-empires with lax laws on hostile takeovers, buy out a company, and gut them; selling off its assets and shipping the wealth back home. With the new pan-Colonial trading regulations the Urten Confederation had been marginalized- due more to Caprica looking after its own self-interests than any act of benevolence by the powers that be.

"Oh, I can see that and others, too." Corman gestured with a circular hand motion before lowering it back to grasp his coffee cup. "After the Thirteenth tried to conquer Kobol we were merciless and forced them to flee into space… it's said that's when Olympus turned its back on us, for our cruelty, which led to Kobol's transformation from a paradise to an unstable world. Some people may want to make penance." He considered his words, not wanting to push away Commander Cain from politics. Her first taste at a Colonial League dinner party hadn't gone well, but it had broken the ice and gotten her name in the minds of the movers and shakers of Cap City. "Some want a defense pact with Earth, despite knowing nothing about Earth. Delegate Cooms, for example wants that while Leonis is pushing for a limited attack on Sokar... and by limited they want a nuclear strike on his military facilities. The League is the successor to the Terrestrial Freedom Party and Planetary Sovereignty Alliance which means an aggressive foreign policy- they'd push for war with Sokar as soon as we brief all the party leadership. The United Movement… gods, who can predict what the UM will do?" He shrugged, massaging his forehead. "In the end we'll do what the government tells us to do."

"Civilian control…" Cain sighed.

"I'm a Caprican, Helena," the corner of Corman's lip went up in a smirk, "I may not like the political party in charge at the moment but I've been raised since birth to respect civilian control of the military. We take that respect and oath seriously… Sara Corman shot General Kyrthia to stop his coup in 23,007." He hummed an understanding of her reservations. "They can be a nuisance but… like that dinner party, you're going to have to be able to deal with them. And… right now, well, soon, you're going to be getting a crash course in dealing with politicians."

"Sir?" The commander's head jerked to the side, her right ear a little closer to her shoulder, and her eyes narrowed inquisitively. "A crash course?" She tensed. "I don't like the sound of that…"

"_Argus_ is heading out to another planet with a Stargate. You're going to be the Sixth Fleet liaison and act as my eyes and ears, Helena."

"For contact with Earth?" She asked. He nodded. "Doesn't that require someone of higher rank? I'm only a commander. A full admiral or at least a vice-"

Corman held up a hand as he shook his head. "Politics… civilian control, remember? Secretary Prestiok, the President's Chief of Staff, and about half his cabinet were insistent a civilian representative be sent which means we need a commander to act as a laison, not a flag officer at this time. With higher civilian officials comes flag officers."

"They want credit." Cain's tone was accusatory. "After the military lost over a thousand of its own." She looked away, displeased.

"Not our call." That ended the disagreement. "I've cut your orders and you're on LFD starting…" he looked at his watch, "in six hours. You'll head to the Pinnacle and meet with part of SG1. After that you're limited fleet duty will afford you a few days of rest. Gerhard has already made reservations for you at Coastal Sun." He saw her searching for a means to object to the generous assignment. Coastal Sun was a popular resort, almost impossible to get into during Caprican summers, and on the periphery of the city had a private marina and a private white sand beach. "This is an opportunity, Helena. I want to see rear admiral insignias on you within the next few years." He nodded at her and rested his eyes on her commander insignias.

"Um… thank you, sir, for your confidence in me."

"You're an excellent officer, Helena and your early promotion to commander has opened up doors for you. The _Argus_ mission, Operation Home Star, will end a successful posting as my chief of staff."

"Sir, I still… have some months left." She felt a need to express her loyalty to the admiral, that she wouldn't take a temporary posting if he still needed her here on Picon.

"This mission is expected to take over eight weeks, possibly ten or eleven. This LFD to _Argus_ will be a positive mark on your career, commander. _Argus_ is a hard ship to get on… a little difficult to serve on with much of the crew being FID, but you have the right uh, mentality for it, Helena." She sat with perfect military posture and with a slight nod of the head for a subtle acknowledgment. "While you won't be in command you'll be my eyes and ears, and the eyes and ears for the Fleet Admiral. Once you return… BCS starts in four months."

Cain's eyes glittered. Battlestar Command School. It was every commander's dream. She'd known she'd make it to the school, with her appointment as chief of staff for Admiral Corman, but to hear it, to know she had a spot… it was breathtaking. She felt her heart thump in her chest. _That_ was the ticket. A battlestar to call her own would put her in an elite group of men and women who would have the privilege to say they commanded the most powerful ships known to man… it was amazing, glorious.

She pushed some hair back, closed her eyes, and she quietly laughed at her good luck. "That's some of the best news-"

"You earned it, commander. By next year I expect to see you in command of a battlestar."

* * *

**Caprica City**

**The Pinnacle, Supreme Colonial Military Headquarters**

"I don't like it, Tiberiu." Secretary Vance Prestiok growled. He took a timid step towards the floor-to-ceiling windows on the northern face of the fleet admiral's office. A swipe of his hand onto the switch glass sent an electrical charge through the glass, changing it from an opaque frosted white to translucent. The expansive, vast skyline of Caprica City, with its blues, whites, purples, greens, and every color imaginable lit the night sky. Prestiok took a moment for the view. "Our boss certainly didn't appreciate being kept in the dark on _Night Owl_." He waved off towards Caprica City, dozens of kilometers in the distance and turned back to Tiberiu Ordinus. "You're Gemenese but I swear you think like a Picon when it comes to the military…" he tensed. "Damnit, admiral, civilians are in command of this military and you'll fraking respect that."

Fleet Admiral Tiberiu Ordinus sat back, shoulders raised, and hands flat on his desk. He spoke in an even and unemotional tone. "If you want my resignation, Mr. Secretary-"

"Gods damnit, stop with the drama." Prestiok was back by the side of his desk, his fingers laced around a whiskey glass. "The _last _thing we need is you resigning… it'd give the President's political opponents too much ammunition and he's got enough on his plate with this teacher thing. And… you're one of the better Fleet Admirals I've seen." Strange enough it didn't leave a sour taste in Prestiok's mouth to say that. There were a few others thing the Secretary of War could have said, but he settled for a quick and heavy glare, a silent warning, at the fleet admiral.

Ordinus saw the glare and his boss's knuckles, whitened, as he clutched the glass. The fleet admiral had a nagging suspicion it took a lot of effort for his boss to admit that he was anything more than a 'nuisance' and an 'old guard admiral chasing shadows'.

Vance Prestiok studied the old man, twenty years his senior, with a keen eye. Ordinus wasn't the big and imposing military man of television dramas who could scale mountains and shit lightning while slaughtering hordes of enemies with his fists. He was but a man of average height suffering the stresses of a tiring and exhausting position. His complexion, while still dark, was showing the signs of age and the stress of the job. The skin was a little looser around the chin then it had been when he assumed his post and white hair outlined a dark face which gave him a sort of 'learned elder' look one could easily put into a stereotypical Mesh or V-world drama. For the secretary the fleet admiral looked more like a librarian or a professor rather than the stereotypical hard-as-frak, kill-you-with-a-flick-of-the-wrist professional sailor.

"Politics should not be-"

"Considered?" Prestiok grunted. "You've served fifty-five years, Tiberiu, you know politics and the military are like whore and patron. Which is which?" He shrugged. "I don't know. But we each try and frak the other over and when we're done pray we gave the other some dirty little disease to shrivel the other's cock. And don't tell me you wouldn't feel a little warm tingly inside being able to frak over President Adar."

"None of that was my intention… we've been running the op since the end of the War. We were gathering intelligence so the committee could make an informed decision regarding Plan _Constellation_."

"Yes… more nukes with little to no control over them… a rogue pilot on a nuclear armed CAP can now go crazy and a million die." Prestiok sounded angry. "I supported _Constellation_ on the condition it was an either/or scenario. Not a '_build a frak ton of nukes and expand the fleet_' proposition like I've been blinded with… going to the Quorum like that… gods damnit. I swear this Picon/Tauron mentality of military versus civilian…" he trailed off and just shook his head. "We can't afford to continue expanding the fleet and building nukes with President Adar's other spending priorities."

It went without saying the admiral objected to 'other spending priorities'. Few in the military were fans of the Adar Presidency. Prestiok knew that. And he knew he wasn't well liked in the Pinnacle either but he didn't much care. A Caprican through and through he was a firm believer in civilian control over the military. If being rude, abrasive, or just blunt about who was boss meant pissing off dynastic families who'd run fleets and commanded armies for millennia, so be it.

Admiral Ordinus sighed. "There were less politics at the temple."

"Then maybe you should have stayed a priest?" The secretary of war growled.

One thing he did like about the man; he'd worked his way up. His family had little to no military experience. The Ordinus family had been manual laborers most of their generations on Gemenon. Prestiok may have been curt and gruff with the fleet admiral but he had more respect for him than some of the others.

Ordinus shrugged and then a wry grin developed. _Gotcha_. "You Capricans were getting ready to attack my home world." He held up his left hand and squeezed a fist. "I got this in return."

The secretary glanced briefly at the fist and the rubbery skin covering it and picked out the little artificial crease lines. The skin and hand looked real from a distance, but up close there were minute differences in appearance and texture and warmth which just weren't natural.

He tore his eyes off the fist as Ordinus lowered it back to the desk. He didn't want to stare. He also didn't want to point out that the eight planets involved in the FCC were all ready to go to war. No one was innocent. Not Caprica. And definitely _not_ Gemenon.

Prestiok put up his hands in his defense, changing his own body language and changing the tone of the conversation. "Fine, politics can stay outside… would you or Admiral Corman have eventually informed us about your little side operation into Cylon space?"

Both men felt slightly more at ease in the other's presence for the time being. There was too much going on, too many contingencies which were being considered, and the Goa'uld problem was a difficulty both men were having difficulty putting into the proper context. Aliens? Snakes that could take control of a human by wiggling into the brain? Teleportation? Hyperspace? And aliens with pouches to serve as incubators for the snakes? And… wormholes! It was a disturbingly fantastic and strange problem which both men swore sounded like it was some sort of Mesh drama rather than real life.

Prestiok and Ordinus both wished the Colonies could return to a simpler time when 'all' they had to worry about were Cylons and aliens were no more fearsome than bacteria.

Ordinus looked at his desk and frowned. "If we'd found something, yes, sir. But we didn't. And past administrations have made it clear to the military about plausible deniability." He took a breath. "This whole unification thing has been difficult. We mashed together too many conflicting cultures…"

Prestiok nodded and took a quick drink. He smacked his lips and put down the glass a little too hard, clanging it on the desk. He was back by the windows. "Plausible deniability has gone straight to the Underworld now. Whatever the difficulties are and even with the Cylons not behind the Line, they're still out there." He swiveled his head to see the life-sized models of Cylons and Spartoi in the corners of the Fleet Admiral's office, standing tall with bullet holes in head and chest as war trophies. He hated seeing them but they were a grizzly reminder of the past. "So now there's an entire galaxy full of humans and parasitic worms-"

"More like serpents, sir."

"Whatever. The people who've dealt with them are calling them snakes or snake heads." Prestiok leaned on the glass, his hand leaving an imprint, and looked down. "Gods…" he whispered. Two hundred and thirty-one floors down was the ground. "The Cylons aren't really gone. They're out there… and thanks to Commander Adama we have a new threat to deal with. How are the people going to react, admiral? They have a right to know." Prestiok threw his shoulders back, stretching himself to appear taller. "I've made my recommendation to the president… made it as soon as I learned about the snakes… we have no right to keep such a threat secret from the people."

Ordinus held his breath.

"Sir, I've accepted responsibility for _Valkyrie_. And this Goa'uld threat would have emerged eventually. It's beneficial to us we were able to make contact with friendly forces rather than meeting a Goa'uld head on in an unexpected battle. From a purely military standpoint we were fortunate to lose only a little over a thousand and only one ship. With Sokar and the System Lords distracted we should have time to prepare. Somehow." He hesitated, swallowing. "Telling the people before we're ready… before we have the weapons to fight them…" he sucked in a breath, "I don't think that's… prudent."

'Prudent' was the polite word.

Secretary Prestiok stood silently for a moment. Ordinus could see a dim reflection and noted the man's eyes were closed, not out of fear, but contemplation.

"If you say so," he said, more to acknowledge the disagreement then agree with it. "How unfortunate we consider the destruction of an attackstar and the deaths of men and women 'fortunate', admiral. But casualties define war, do they not? How few is a thousand compared to seven billion… or forty-five?" Prestiok looked tired, depressed as the numbers and deaths hung as black clouds in his mind. A thousand and change dead… such a small number compared to the forty-five billion in the Colonies. "So why are we sending a stealth battlestar out there all alone if they can see through our stealth technology?"

"_Argus_ is the fastest battlestar in the fleet and she has some damn fast computers. If she gets in trouble she'll jump out of there faster than an Aphrodite-"

The secretary held up a hand. He didn't need the mental image of what an 'Aphrodite second' was, though now that he was thinking about it, the visceral image flashed through his mind in all its raunchy, depraved glory. A momentary guilty smirk flashed on his face.

"What's your assessment of the Earthers, Tiberiu?"

His nose wrinkled. "Dealing with fifty or sixty or however many different nation empires Earth has is going to be difficult. I don't like their acknowledgment of America being 'one nation among many.' Though I consider it lucky they are the strongest… if they're not lying about that." His eyes narrowed and he looked past the secretary, towards the city. "They aren't telling us everything."

"It shouldn't be too difficult. There's a plenty of autonomous states on some of our planets, Tiberiu, we might be rusty, but it's not like we can't handle a little diplomacy." The fleet admiral shrugged and leaned back in his seat. "That's why we'll be sending a diplomat or two, someone who can speak for the President… and it won't be me."

"Quorum delegates or someone on his staff?"

Prestiok raised an eyebrow. "Hopefully staff, but the Quorum wants to send one of its own. Delegate Shaw wants to go, but she's Colonial League and it'd look ridiculous to send a political rival of the president's. Delegate Trellos, too, but he's an anti-military Prog like me," he said tongue-in-cheek with a wrinkled brow, a frown. "Benson recommended we send a special envoy, no Quorum, keep politics out of it." Prestiok stopped and thought over the proposal from George Benson, the President's chief of staff. "We're going to have to brief the major party leadership on the situation at some point. Soon."

"If I may offer some advice, Mr. Secretary?" Prestiok nodded. "We've already briefed the Quorum and the highest ranking PCers. If we brief some of the more, um… fiery ones, like from the United Movement, they may just go right to the press."

Prestiok snorted. "The Movers are fraking crazy." He waged a finger. "And you know it." The admiral did nod an agreement. United Movement wasn't much liked by any of the parties and not the old families of the Colonies, despite ideology. They believed in 'returning to the basics' when it came to the Colonies- agrarian and craftsman-based economies with a minimum of heavy industry to support a war effort. And lots of nukes to act as a deterrent against Cylon attack. "I'm sharing this with you in confidence, Tiberiu, and because the military will be playing a central role. We don't want to send anyone too important in the government and give the impression we're… desperate." He sneered.

"I agree, Mr. Secretary. I have my doubts about what a single, un-unified planet can offer us."

The secretary shrugged and shoved a hand in his pocket and used the other to gesture. "How do the priests feel about their religion?"

"The monotheism? Or the strange polytheism?"

"I haven't consulted many priests with the necessary clearance…"

The secretary gave the admiral a tired look. "As a former priest…" he led the fleet admiral on.

"But as a former priest with military training… we're twelve planets to their one. They're light years away. And as their Doctor Jackson loves to talk and talk, there are many monotheistic religions and religions focusing on spirituality rather than gods… or that Hinduism he mentioned." He tapped the desk. "Monotheism was a Gemenese anomaly and once the STO were broken sixty years ago not much has happened since. Gemenon still has some sects in Tyri and Ara where I did some missionary work in my late teens, before joining up. They make up a large minority in the Sata Commonwealth and while they can be a nuisance I can't see any new problems from them." He took a moment. "While I'm a bit uh, wary of the ones we have, they're loyal to the Colony. The ones in Sata were fiercely anti-STO. So…"

"Very well…" he trailed off and threw his hands into his pockets. His right came out and he flipped a flash drive between his fingers, tossing it over to Ordinus. "Tiberiu, reports from Section Seven and Nine on their assessment of the Earthers. The President doesn't want Commander Adama going and we'll use the excuse that his ship's getting repaired so he can save face on not being selected to be part of the mission."

"I'd like him to go, sir, but I understand the reluctance and I know he'll appreciate being able to at least save face… I don't want his career to suffer, however. We train our officers to take the initiative and out there," he gesture towards the sky, "where they're cut off from the chain of command they need to make quick decisions. We can't go and punish our men and women for doing their jobs and executing them in a manner in which they, we were trained… aggressiveness has been a core value since… since Kobol, sir."

The secretary crossed his legs and set his elbows to rest on the arm rests casually, steepling his fingers under his chin.

"You don't want his career to suffer, do you?"

"He's a decorated pilot and a damn fine tactician, Mr. Secretary. He's proven he has what it takes to command and that's why Fleet selected him for the missions."

"And he used his wife's political connections to get back into the Fleet… I have a full dossier with his entire life history sitting on my desk, Tiberiu." Prestiok grunted. "Maybe. Maybe… I don't know, no decision's been made yet, not right now. After the CRB… an _impartial _CRB… we'll see how this mission plays out and what happens concerning these secret missions before I ask for any resignations."

Ordinus narrowed his eyes as the black rectangle he'd caught and placed on his desk. '…before I ask for any resignations' was an ominous admission on the secretary's part that some heads somewhere would have to roll. _Politics_.

Still, a little piece, no larger than a shrivel, was able to work its way past the fleet admiral's pride and admit the secretary was right. In a manner of speaking. There was 'us versus them' in the Pinnacle or at the Aegis and the hundreds of years of Military First traditions could sometimes come to spectacular clashes with the engrained ideology of the Capricans or Aerilons or Sagittarons or others that the military was _subordinate_ to the civilian administration, not its _equal_ or in some cases, its _superior_. The problem was that both systems had either worked or failed spectacularly on all the Colonies. Each side had its own triumphs to brag of and its own humiliating defeats for the other to ridicule and use as proof their concept was superior while the other's was inferior.

Politics.

"Ah…" Ordinus saw a light on his phone blink twice. He picked up the received. "Yes…? Okay, thank you senior chief." He set the receiver gently down on the cradle. "Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c just arrived on Pad Oh-Three Nebula. They should be here shortly."

* * *

Colonel O'Neill tugged at his collared shirt and caught the look Teal'c was giving him. He was doing that raised eyebrow thing.

But the moment's distraction almost resulted in the two of them colliding with a trio of Colonials standing and talking. Their escort, Captain Nikon, pulled O'Neill to the side at the last minute. Commander Allison Vasic, already half a dozen steps ahead and with two other officers, didn't notice.

"What? It's uncomfortable. It's a monkey suit." O'Neill said as he caught Teal'c giving him the eye again.

"You have worn a similar uniform for the Air Force on many occasions. The only difference is this is civilian attire."

The colonel sighed. "Well… I don't like this one."

"Sorry, sir," Nikon began, dodging another fast moving colonel talking on a phone while skimming a comp sheet, "but your BDUs are completely unacceptable to see the Fleet Admiral."

"BDUs are great," O'Neill countered. "We've used them for dozens of contact scenarios."

"Some cultures took offense, O'Neill. Remember P7H-481 where their leaders spat on us? Or P4R-935 where their sub-commander threatened to strip us of our clothes and throw us in a cage for appearing before their ruling council? Or-"

The colonel gave his Jaffa buddy a friendly slap on the back. "I'm getting old, but I'm not senile, T. I remember."O'Neill's held a flat smile. "I wasn't really expecting to-"

"Be abducted and taken half way across the galaxy." Teal'c finished. "You have said that or similar on many occasions, O'Neill."

Captain Nikon chose to remain silent but silently chuckled at the banter between the two.

O'Neill coughed and another marble statue of two soldiers, one with a gun and the other with a sword fighting some sort of hydra-like creature, caught his attention.

"So, anything we should know, captain?" He asked, swiveling his head around to take one last look at the art.

He'd been to the Pentagon and close to two dozen other military headquarters in a long career spanning decades, a retirement, and missions taking him as far as the Middle East, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, other places… and to other galaxies. Of course.

Thinking back a lot of the missions on Earth just seemed… plain, uneventful compared to what he'd seen since Abydos and Ra.

O'Neill kept looking around at the artwork and décor. Their shuttle, a _Condor, _had landed on the one hundred and third level on one of the dozens of small landing pads dotting the sides of the Pinnacle.

The first thing he'd realized when he and everyone else had arrived at the Cyrannus-Helios Double Binary Super Star System- a mouthful shortened to just Cyrannus-Helios System or one or the other, depending on which of the four stars they were orbiting- was that when the Colonials built they built _big. _The Pinnacle was a masterpiece of architecture, blending the new and the old. The building was two hundred and forty floors high with a twenty-two acre base. Eight towers of varying height were spaced close, connected by dozens of sky bridges, and formed the main structure. At the base a massive colonnade surrounded the building, made of white and black marble imported by around the Colonies. Dozens of additional office towers from thirty to a hundred floors surrounded the Pinnacle to provide additional space for personnel of headquarters for special divisions.

The building was designed with certain reflective properties in its glass so when the sun struck the spires it mimicked the appearance of a blue-white FTL jump.

He's accessed the Mesh before coming to read up on the building, its history. Caprica had been and still was the wealthiest colony and it enjoyed flaunting its wealth- at least according to some critics of the building described as 'wasteful' and 'ostentatious' and 'one big nuke magnet.' The nuke magnet was probably simultaneously the most legitimate and ridiculous criticism. Any military headquarters would be a nuke magnet. The Pentagon's central plaza was known during the Cold War as 'ground zero' because the Soviets had nukes targeted there. So he figured the military command here figured wherever the Colonies built their supreme headquarters it'd be a nuke target regardless.

O'Neill sighed through flared nostrils and then sniffed the cool/recycled elevator air when he heard Nikon speaking.

"Military courtesy is key," Nikon told them. They went through a quick third round of security- if one counted the flight from _Aether_ and the initial landing- which had them walking through some white and black paneled device- a full body scanner. Military police stood on each side looking ominous and tough, like they were praying someone was going to try something fraking stupid so they could snap into action and break the monotony of looking at body images. "Shake his hand only if he offers. Sarcasm isn't advisable." That got a look from O'Neill.

A policeman called an elevator and the doors swung open a few seconds later. No one except for the three were in.

"Captain." O'Neill was curt. "I think we can handle it."

"Captain Nikon is only trying to be thorough, Colonel O'Neill." Teal'c looked his friend up and down. "You do have a tendency of being very direct with foreign dignitaries."

"And he's a war hero and…" Nikon leaned in and lowered his voice as they stepped onto an elevator. "His left hand is synthetic… lost it in the FCC and had it replaced with a mechanical."

"Is that not common, Captain Nikon?" Teal'c asked. "A prostheses to replace a lost limb?"

"Before the Cylon War it was. A lot of veterans who lost limbs had them replaced but it's a bit taboo. Some decide to go with unpowered ones. It's just you don't talk about it, even in private…" Nikon shifted his weight. "Having a powered limb, it's just… one of those things that makes people… uncomfortable. It reminds a lot of people about Cylons and some disturbing experiments."

O'Neill looked at the captain from the corner of his eyes. There were a lot of taboos, customs, and other strange peculiarities in their culture which made it almost like walking through a minefield at times. Daniel had basically said- last night, over diner, and joking O'Neill assumed- the Colonies were an amalgam of 'ancient Rome and Greece, maybe with a little Byzantine tossed in, and with a heavy dose of basically being Space America.'

Space America O'Neill could deal with. Space Greece and Space Rome was another issue.

"See, this is why we need Daniel." O'Neill wagged a finger at Teal'c. "He's here in the city, but where?" His tone was playful, the question spoken to sound rhetorical, even though he truly didn't know.

"He is at the Temple of Aphrodite, O'Neill."

Nikon leaned forward. "The Temple of Aphrodite? Which one?"

"He did not say. He said he needed to engage in anthropological research."

Nikon coughed and covered his mouth. His shoulders gently swayed up and down from the small fit.

"Well… um… the temples are pretty clean, it being a form of worship and all, so he uh… he should be safe."

O'Neill looked at the two of them and it took about a split second for him to get it. "That son of a bitch."

"Indeed."

The colonel stood brooding in silence at Daniel's 'anthropological research'. Whatever. He'd give him hell when he saw him again.

The elevator chimed and the door quietly slid open, the three stepping into a large lobby. A dozen men and women in various uniforms were arranged on the left wall and the far end, typing away on computers, filing papers, and looking busy. Four armed guards, each with pistols strapped to their thighs, were spaced throughout the lobby.

As Teal'c, Nikon, and O'Neill stepped out two guards appeared seemingly out of nowhere, the other four still in their positions, and asked for identification.

O'Neill and Teal'c had both been given a thick plastic ID card, which the two men scanned. They'd been given false names and backgrounds, just in case. O'Neill was still a colonel and Teal'c was officially a 'major'. Both files were marked as 'classified', meaning security personnel would assume them to be with the clandestine services.

Nikon handed him his ID as well.

"Captain," the taller of the two guards said, "thank you for escorting Colonel O'Neill and Major Teal'c but the fleet admiral and Secretary Prestiok have requested only their presence. If you will wait out here…" he gestured to a chair.

It would have been exciting to meet the fleet admiral, and he was disappointed, but he had others to meet with while the Earthers were with the fleet admiral and secretary. Whatever would be discussed would be way above his pay grade, he was sure.

"Sirs," Nikon said with a nod.

The two security men escorted Teal'c and O'Neill into Ordinus's office, which was through a set of ornately carved wooden doors and down a long hall and through a widened space which had been divied up into dozens of cubicles. Fleet, Army, Marines, and another branch of uniforms Teal'c and O'Neill didn't recognize were all at their desks or in small groups talking. A few conference rooms with large monitors had a few people in them, gesturing at what looked like border demarcation lines. One room had a rotating battlestar on the screen, parts being highlighted. Three people in a corner conference room were wearing the holo-bands, connected to a small oval router via a cord. O'Neill could see their eyes rapidly twitching under closed lids.

The two were escorted by the security guards into another room and then through a double set of plain black doors, flat and smooth with the exception of a large handle and bolts dotting the perimeter.

An old man sat across the room behind a desk, looking towards another man who was about middle-aged, medium height, and with a strong, square jaw but narrow shoulders. That man, a bit skinny, was in a suit, obviously the secretary. The fleet admiral in his uniform looked gaunt on first glance, or maybe it was just how the light was catching his face from the entrance?

Like Captain Nikon had advised, O'Neill and Teal'c were silent until Fleet Admiral Ordinus spoke and extended his hand in greeting. "Colonel O'Neill, Teal'c." He shook both hands in turn. "I'm sure you've heard this many times since _Valkyrie_, but it's an honor and privilege to meet a man from Earth, a descendent of the Thirteenth, and an… alien."

"The honor is ours," Teal'c said, bowing his head, "to meet the supreme military commander of the Colonies of Kobol."

O'Neill gave his Jaffa friend a subtle look and a barely raised eyebrow. "Yes, sir, a pleasure… the whole Kobol thing though is kind of…"

Prestiok had stepped forward, his hands clasped behind his back. "Confusing?" He nodded to answer his own question. "Believe me, the president has expressed his interest in solving this mystery." The secretary turned to the fleet admiral and waited. "As have we all."

"Colonel O'Neill, Teal'c, this is the Secretary of War, Mr. Vance Prestiok."

After shaking the hands of the Earther and Jaffa, Prestiok motioned for them to sit at a small conference table on the far side of the office. Small glasses had already been filled with water and two square pictures were already sitting on two metal trays.

"This is quite a view you folks have. How high are we?" O'Neill asked as he walked past the table and to the window. He whistled.

"One point eight kilometers." Ordinus answered to the sound of another whistle and a muffled 'wow-zers.' "The Pinnacle is one of the larger buildings on Caprica, but not the largest."

O'Neill finally had an unobstructed view of Caprica City. It was breathtaking.

Teal'c was by his seat. "What we have seen is most impressive. I have not seen a world such as this since Earth. Very few worlds in the galaxy can boast of the industrial and engineering achievements of your Colonies of Kobol, Fleet Admiral."

Prestiok exchanged a glance with the admiral. "You flatter us, Teal'c, please sit," the secretary offered. "Colonel O'Neill." The secretary's call was louder and terse. He waited until O'Neill had seated himself next to Teal'c and gotten comfortable in the chairs. "I guess we should just come straight to it; are you of sufficient rank to negotiate with, Colonel O'Neill?"

"Excuse me?"

Admiral Ordinus interrupted. "From what we understand the rank of commander is equivalent to a flag officer in your military. Our concern is whether any agreements we come to can be honored by your military commanders and, I am assuming, civilian leadership?"

"Um, well, yes… sir, I think that's accurate." O'Neill's chin rose. "But as the commanding officer of SG1 I'm authorized on behalf of Stargate Command to negotiate deals and uh… anything else. My command will uphold whatever I agree to, within reason… but we do have civilian authorities who may involve themselves. But generally not." He cast a glance at Prestiok who was staring at him like a hawk and just got a strange vibe from the man, like how you just know if someone likes you or instantly despises you. Either Prestiok was the long lost relative of Senator Kinsey or the War Secretary just didn't like him. After a second of contemplation O'Neill just moved on. Whatever. "Our mission is to seek out technology and allies to aid Earth in defense of the Goa'uld and any other alien threats. And I'm gonna come out and say it, not trying to flatter or anything," he leaned towards Prestiok and then looked at Ordinus, "but you guys rank up there."

"So you want an alliance?" Prestiok asked. "To aid Earth…" he repeated with an almost accusatory tone. "Obviously we want to aid the Colonies."

"Well, having you folks as allies would uh… fulfill the SGC's um, 'alliance quota' for the whole year. And any relationship would be mutually beneficial, I'm sure."

"And what would Earth bring to such an alliance?" Prestiok asked. He paused for a mere heart beat. "We have battlestars, the industrial might of planets and moons, forty-five billion people. We also have a significant threat from the Cylons sitting on our borders, out there." He had his hands folded on the table but raised the top one a mere centimeter to gesture towards space. He spoke again in a level voice. "Some don't believe an alliance would be in our best interest… that fighting the Goa'uld would be a foreign policy disaster. We're still rebuilding from over seventeen years of war between ourselves and with the Cylons. We're here, in this Traverse, isolated from the Goa'uld. From what we can determine only Sokar knows of our existence. And I doubt he'd want to advertise his loss of two motherships. Yes?"

It went without saying that Prestiok believed they would continue to exist without being discovered.

O'Neill mentally flinched. That sounded a lot like Kinsey and his idiotic attempt to shut down the Stargate Program- which O'Neill now knew was just a ploy to get it under his authority. But once the Goa'uld found ya, you were on their radar. The Colonials would be a big blip on Sokar's radar and unfortunately, to O'Neills damned frustration, he had no idea how the war with Sokar was going.

The Tok'ra were already scared out of their tunnels Sokar's forces would defeat the combined might of the System Lords. And the small actions before they were taken half way across the freaking galaxy to the Colonies did not make a real rosy picture for the galaxy! Sokar could be half-way to conquering the System Lords by now or half-way to defeat! Not knowing was killing a man of action like O'Neill. And sitting in endless meeting after meeting with the Colonials wasn't helping.

"If I may," Teal'c began, "the people of Earth may not have battlestars. Your fleet is impressive. But the people of Earth bring forward a fighting spirit I have not seen in my decades as former First Prime to Apophis or my years before that in his service. I have seen many worlds. Many people's spirits lie crushed. The people of Earth have been honorable and have won many more powerful allies throughout the galaxy. Through strength and diplomacy they have found allies on Orban, Tollana, Othalla, and many other worlds. Some primitive but some significantly more advanced than even your Colonies."

The fleet admiral breathed out and cocked his head towards the windows, the set looking out into the suburbs of Caprica City rather than the colored skyline. "I don't doubt Earth's spirit. Captain Nikon's report on SG1 and SG8, in no uncertain terms, said you were exemplary, that he and Baltar and Amorak would not have survived without the aid of the SG teams. While there are reservations about how we will respond to Sokar's attack- and we will respond-" his tone was firm, "we don't lack any fighting spirit. You've seen our history. We didn't break during the Cylon War-"

"If that couldn't break us, nothing will."

Ordinus's eyebrows rose in mild surprise as Prestiok finished his thought. The secretary even had a fist balled on the table. But he kept himself from showing any other emotion to the secretary's words. The man was right. Ordinus could never fathom the Colonial fighting spirit being broken, even if its people were divided on war and the Cylons.

"That's good to know," O'Neill said. He felt a little of the tension between himself, Teal'c and the two Colonials. He didn't want it to fester. "Like I said, one of our goals was to acquire new technology."

"Indeed," Ordinus observed, "and we've seen what Goa'uld technology is capable of. Major Carter has been an excellent resource in helping us jump start a reverse engineering program. And the fact she is helping us prior to any formal agreement or declaration of intentions between our governments will be looked at favorably. We also understand her loyalty lies first with the United States, not the Colonies."

O'Neill appreciated that, mentally high fiving a Carter thousands of kilometers above him on the fleet station. He still had a sense that Ordinus was talking more for himself, and while he used words like 'us' it seemed that Prestiok was less inclined to be so accommodating.

Carter was helping, but wasn't helping _too_ much. Jessica Amorak had befriended Carter, almost to the point of being inseparable. The Colonial scientist picked Carter's brain for everything she could. A bit coy in his opinion and some of the stuff Daniel had found on her and her family on the Mesh was a little unsettling. Right now though giving a little bit of information wouldn't hurt. Using Colonial technology to improve the shield penetration technology going on the X-301 was a benefit to Earth just as much as the Colonials. Carter had said so. She'd already advanced her understanding of how the Goa'uld took inertia 'out of the equation' by being able to get into the guts of the anti-gee compensators the Colonials used in their Vipers.

He was also trying to get Carter to somehow get a look at the old plasma weapon schematics Amorak had told Carter about, the weapon they'd given up on because they couldn't solve the magnetic bottling problem. So far they hadn't been able to find anything on the Mesh about it and Major Amorak or the other Colonials working with Carter hadn't been all that forthcoming.

One thing O'Neill was pleasantly surprised with was that he was finally on the 'other side' of being sweet talked to. He'd done enough sweet talking and border line pandering to some of the advanced races out there it was nice to be on the receiving end.

The Colonel clicked his teeth, raising his eyebrows. "Well, I guess it's deciding what kind of technology you Colonial folks want and how we can help, right?"

Prestiok pushed forward a piece of paper that O'Neill hadn't noticed. The man slid a finger, activating the comp sheets O'Neill had realized were ubiquitous in Colonial society.

"There are four categories; weapons, shields, communications, and energy. Our understanding is that you have a strong grasp of this naquadah substance." Prestiok gave the colonel a moment to look over the list. "Those are our primary needs. Teleportation and medical technology, too. We would basically like to arrange for trades; information for information. Or if you wish, resources for information. As a token of good faith we're turning over specifications for eighth generation anti-gee compensators and schematics for our tyllium-ion engine. That should help you with your indigenous space fighter, yes?"

O'Neill kept his head down, reading the comp sheet. When Prestiok had slid his finger across it to activate it had translated into English. "Weapons… I told Captain Upland about our recent encounter, providing hard water for fusion, right?" He nodded to himself. "We were going to provide it to a people called the Eurondans. But we discovered they were a bunch of space Nazis hellbent on racial purity-"

"Yes…" Prestiok answered slowly. "It was in Captain Upland's report. 'Racial purity' based on skin color." The secretary was visibly sickened. "Disgusting. I'll be honest, we've had our own problems between the planets, but never have we discriminated based on one's… skin color."

From what O'Neill and Teal'c had seen, that was pretty consistent and racism, at least how it was present on Earth, wasn't present in the Colonies. No one cared what the color of one's skin was here. Planet of origin was another thing entirely. They'd talked about it a little amongst themselves but the competition between planets seemed just like the classic competition one would have seen between nations in the 19th and to the mid-20th centuries.

There were planetary epithets tossed around but no one went to war based on anything like why the Eurondans had gone after the 'Breeders.'

The colonel sighed. "Well, the teleportation is something we don't have much on… Goa'uld medical technology is worthless unless you have naquadah in the blood…" he swallowed. "You want all our research on this stuff." He and Teal'c both looked up to see the Colonial reaction.

"Well, we _can _negotiate, but it does seem fair." Ordinus stated. "We can use it. We have the battlestars and the ships and the resources. And we're prepared to have an exchange program of sorts with the SGC. Your shield penetration technology saved the _Valkyrie_ BSG." There was thanks and a clear sign of respect in the fleet admiral's eyes. "We would repay that beyond just the AGC and TI engines."

"Yeah… but… you all seem friendly and I like you all, I've seen some really cool things here, but-"

"What if we become unfriendly?" Prestiok said, holding his hand up in a palm-out 'stop' sign. "I can offer assurances we have no designs on Earth, no covert agenda to subvert your planet."

"To alleviate your fears, Colonel O'Neill, you don't have to worry. We share the genetic markers indicating a common Kobolian ancestor, but Earth doesn't remember Kobol and the Colonial on the street sees Earth as nothing more than myth, legend." Odinus had leaned back in his chair. He looked casual discussing this. "If we reveal Earth to the public people will want to see it." He chuckled. "At worse you'll be inundated with annoying tourists snapping pictures and yelling words to you really slow like your deaf." O'Neill shuddered at the thought of tourists. He saw the Colonials with fanny packs and knee-high socks in massive groups taking pictures of _everything_ for a second. "We've used telescopes to search the stars for Kobol, but it's alluded us. From what we've heard from Nizsim about this 'Transhaw Traverse' we believe it is somewhere here, in this Traverse. Maybe Earth will help us find it. Somehow… and that, I guess is our only 'design' on Earth, to search for our past."

"You think Earth can help… search for your past" O'Neill was suspicious. There was a little throbbing sensation in the back of his skull after hearing 'search for our past.' It didn't sit right with him. "Why? There's something you're not telling us." It sounded like a question but it was anything but.

Prestiok shifted in his seat. He received a nod from Ordinus. "How is it that we know of Earth or how did the ancient Kobolians know?" He paused. "It's our belief that the ancient Kobolians were extremely advanced, much more advanced than we are now and that they sent expeditions to neighboring worlds. Doctor Jackson has told us that the Goa'uld abducted people for thousands of years. Yet we have no record of this. An academic would be better able to explain this. But our culture is our own, we have records of Olympus and the gods, literature and poems and epics and art dating back many thousands of years beyond when Ra was on Earth. The genetic markers found in our DNA are too conclusive to simply dismiss, Colonel O'Neill. There are descendants of the Thirteenth on Earth, who bred with Earth's indigenous population. What does this mean? How do some share these genetic markers with us? It's our belief the ships from the Thirteenth landed somewhere in the area Dr. Jackson has identified as the Mediterranean Sea over forty-five hundred of your years ago."

"And…"

"We want to find the ships, colonel. We want to find the ships and through them, find Kobol and solve this mystery."

O'Neill rubbed his temples, a mouthed 'oy' escaping under his breath. They weren't going to like it when the SGC rejected _that_ request.

* * *

**Myrmidon Fleet Station**

**FID Wing**

**Seven Days Until **_**Argus**_** Expedition, Operation Home Star**

There was a small amount of tension between the commander and the major. Both experts in their fields and with self-assurance bordering on arrogance sat across from each other, neither having said a word for nearly a minute. The cool, recycled air of the space station, blew onto both from above, the low hum of the air compressor units the only noise.

Commander Marc Bannon coughed. "I don't know how much longer we can support your project or Iason."

"General Namadia gives her full support, _commander_," Major Amorak shot back, her face like stone but her tone fiery. She didn't back down from a fight. "I've been working with Iason for a long time now. He's stable, he works for us. There's no question about it. No discussion. He's already used the information Rhadmet and Nizsim has provided-"

"Assuming their information is reliable, _major_." Bannon cut her off. He was sitting at an angle to her, behind his desk, one hand on the desk and one hand on his thigh. "And we're still going to need a team of _human_ scientists to check the data and calculations."

"Iason helped Gaius and I develop CORA. Without him where would we be?" Amorak was getting pushy. "He's been instrumental in plotting the theoretical development of the Cylon artificial psyche and technological progression." Amorak's clicked her teeth. "You've seen the projections of Cylon development published by the university academics. They're _wrong_. Even the military when you compare their projections to Iason's they completely miss it… and honestly, we're problem missing it. We need a live Cylon, a modern Cylon."

"I guess you want me to what… go ask Zeus to conjure a Cylon up for us?" Bannon instantly regretted the sarcasm. But an apology now would be seen as a weakness. He had full access to the major's psyche evaluations; she could basically be anyone she wanted to, act however the situation demanded it. She could go from a girly-girl to an introverted and aloof scientist or a complacent and respectful officer to a demanding prima donna in the time it took to snap his fingers. Bannon shook his head. "The Cylons are going to be the least of our worries if the Goa'uld threat develops."

"No," the major shook her head. Her dark hair lagged behind the movement and she brushed it back behind her shoulder. "We need to go out and get a Cylon. Find one."

"_Nigh Owl_ has been disclosed fully to the civilian leadership, major." Bannon closed his eyes. "I don't think you understand how much shit we're in."

"Then why reveal it?"

"Why?" Bannon swallowed and swiveled his chair, leaning onto his forearms on his desk. "Why… because one of the missions just revealed a far more deadly enemy on a _galactic_ scale. That's why."

"With more resources we can destroy the entire Cylon threat-"

"We don't even know if CORA works, and that's the problem, major. That's the problem. And now we're faced with this?" He scoffed, mentally rolling his eyes. A manila folder on his desk was flipped open with a fast hand movement and comp sheets were out. "We've killed a dozen stories speculating on what happened out there to the _Valkyrie_ group. We've killed a dozen more stories accusing us of trying to antagonize the Cylons into war. Every year more and more news agencies try and get into Cylon space. Do you know how much money it costs to bribe that many journalists?"

Jessica Amorak's left eye narrowed. She figured there was more to the bribes than money. "_Just_ money?" The question sounded accusatory.

Commander Bannon certainly wouldn't be accused of nefarious acts by an Amorak. There was enough on her family- and she knew it- to keep her from getting moralistic on him. For a fleeting moment he debated to raise just one of the skeletons in her closet, but pushed the thought aside. He and she were an unstoppable force and an unmovable wall. He wasn't sure which he was and which she was, but he knew fighting would result in nothing gained.

"And where do you think the Cylons are, commander? They have to be out there. If they haven't made contact with one of the aliens in the galaxy, I'd be fraking surprised." She crossed her arms, glaring at the commander.

Bannon held back interrupting and throwing in a 'sir' at the end of her statement.

"We're considering all our options, major. Despite your clearance you are _not_ privileged to all the information pertaining to Section Nine and FID operations concerning the Cylons."

A curious eyebrow rose on the military scientist. "Oh?" It sounded like a challenge.

Commander Bannon opened his mouth and closed it slowly, compensating with a slow breath through his teeth. FID was a colossal organization. She very well could know just as much as, maybe more. The way FID clearance and need-to-know classifications worked were confusing, even to a veteran like himself. They were designed that way, unfortunately, and were the product of mashing together twelve separate intelligence agencies when the planets unified.

"Iason is a clear and present danger to our entire civilization, major. Despite what he's helped us with, we've had enough failures to make us cautious. You know that. Mathias went… mad and infected the computers so much we couldn't purge him." He folded his hands together, index fingers pointing to Amorak. "There's a bigger picture here; don't get attached. Remember, they aren't human, no matter how much they sound like us."

Amorak huffed. "Iason's done more to improve our understanding of the Cylons than Graystone or Vergis did, and they invented the fraking things, commander. Do you know what he's doing right now?" She waited for a beat. "He's examining the signature our FTL engines are putting out and trying to find ways to mask them from Goa'uld sensors so we can't be tracked. We had to completely dismantle the FTLs on the Raptor we sent back. You know how expensive it would be to do that to thousands of massive FTL arrays designed for warships? When _Argus _departs we don't want them being followed back to the Colonies."

The major rapped her fingers on her knee, which was crossed over the other. She realized she was skirting a dangerous line of insubordination with the commander. And within FID that was treated seriously, genius or not, everyone could be replaced. But recently… it was just hard. It was getting harder and harder to stay focused. Especially with Doctor Baltar's offer still hanging over her head. And frak, she hadn't seen him since he made it and he kept leaving messages. He _wanted_ her. And that made her… happy?

She started to state her case again. "Iason has been loyal. I can understand some of the distrust-"

"He's an AI, Amorak, an AI. Even if he's locked on Lokasna under a billion tons of rock, cut off, he's still a threat. At his core are meta-cognitive processors. His basic operating system is a genitive algorithm. You can make the argument not all AI is Cylon or Spartoi, but none of your experiments have succeeded. None of our experiments to create a benevolent smart AI loyal to the Colonies has succeeded."

"Commander-"

"Major Amorak." Bannon was calm. "We're starting a new division to deal with this Goa'uld threat. I know your past concerning the Cylons and your…" he hesitated, "and your mother dying and what your father did." He probably wouldn't be able to forgive his father if he did what Tassos Amorak had done. Bannon saw her reflexively tense, her eye jerking. There was hatred there. "But don't think you're alone in hating the Cylons. And I can see it in your eye, that little twinkle, that faint, dark light when you talk about the Cylons, about CORA. If I could I'd kill every last Cylons in the galaxy. You need to focus, understand?

"One day, major, we'll get that chance. This new division is going to focus on the Goa'uld, reverse engineering their technologies and sending out operatives into the galaxy to begin destabilizing the System Lords and gathering intelligence." He swallowed. "And for your information, major, I concur with your statement about the Cylons from earlier. I do believe they're out there, that they migrated or whatever robots do, out of their designated space, and are somewhere in the galaxy, watching and waiting, acquiring technology, readying their Fleet to hit us. That's why we need to send our operatives out, get technology, and prepare for the inevitable attack."

"So we're going to do it first? We have to do it first. Baseships armed with plasma weaponry would tear our fleet apart."

"That's what I've wanted to tell you. Yes. The broad mandate this new division will follow is to seek out any and all technologies we can use to guarantee the security and continued prosperity of the Colonies… with the express purpose of annihilating the Cylons from this galaxy, destroying the threat once and for all." He eyed her a moment, trying to look into her. There were little tells in her body language, the way she carried herself, the way she looked at him which didn't sit well. Ever since the Raptor crash, the death of her friend, and being forced to kill, something had changed. "We need to focus our resources, _you_ need to focus. You can't be running around doing whatever you want anymore, major." Her head tilted slightly to the left, her eyes widened. "I'm offering you an opportunity to focus that frustration."

"The destruction of the Cylons?" The Cylons were the nightmares that haunted her sleep. They were the mechanical demons, the bogeymen parents used to scare their children into behaving. "What kind of support will we have?"

"Politically… I can't answer that. But we _know_ the Cylons are going to finish the job they started. I can feel it. You," he jabbed a finger at her, "can feel it. Those of us who were touched so intimately by their destruction, not just caught up in the war, we know. But we need to convince the others. We're not radical, major. We need proof. Powerful and undeniable proof the Cylons are coming back."

"We find the proof and we destroy them."

Bannon nodded. "They killed seven billion of us, major, and would've killed all of us if they could have. They went right for the nuclear weapons. If Admiral Marak hadn't destroyed Ragnar they'd have had enough nukes to wipe us out twice over. They indiscriminately nuked our cities, starved our people, and experimented on prisoners. The pain and suffering they caused is incalculable, and the pain they continue to cause countless families," he gestured at himself and her, "and so many others is… staggering. We'll be going into this with Section Nine and a few other agencies, some outside contractors… this is from the top of FID, the top of Nine. If you're worried about legalities-"

"Gods," she rolled her eyes, "creating Iason… how much more trouble could I get in?"

A moment of silence settled between the two. March Bannon had heard of Dr. Baltar's attempts to recruit her. He needed her, FID needed her. He could sense she was on the cusp of resigning her commission, going into private enterprise to make her money- the Amoraks were predictable, despite their intelligence.

He needed her in, under his command, under someone's command. For the good of the Colonies. Everything, every bone in his body ached, telling him the Cylons were out there. How could anyone trust the Cylons? They started the war without warning and ended it and signed an armistice within hours. They were robots, machines, AI. They could wait for decades, centuries. They didn't die. They didn't age. This was for the good of the Colonies. Jessica Amorak was needed.

"So… are you in or out, major?"

Major Amorak looked him right in the eyes. "In."

* * *

**Korshana II**

**City of Spires**

"Oh… fucking damnit."

A burly man with thick black hair, a bit of a pot belly, and strange tattoos running down the side of his face was sitting behind a desk, watching the viewing monitor with a scowl hard enough to set in permanently. He winced, groaning as the man and woman effortlessly grounded four men of his inner security detail.

"Holy double tetra, fuck."

He made a fist and slammed the table.

Unfortunately he'd been eating a biscuit with the really thin deli meats he loved and a spread of oh-so-delicious lime sauce when he'd squeezed his fists angrily together and pounded the table. Now the sauce was all over his desk and papers and his hands were sticky and greasy from an overly buttered biscuit.

There was a soft knock at the door and for a brief moment the man's buttered fingers hovered a red button which would seal his room with a force shield and pump toxic gas throughout the building. It'd kill his guards and the intruders, but who was he kidding, he curled the finger back up. He couldn't kill his bodyguards. He knew the value of good help, and he'd spent a fortune training them up in paramilitary tactics, too much to waste. They weren't faceless mooks the boss, he, could simply betray. The other guards would probably kill him if they learned he killed their friends… it kept them all fairly honest.

He sighed through flared nostrils, papers rumpling on his desk, and the cool air from the sigh whisking over his hairy forearms. His sleeves were rolled up.

What he hated was that the man outside always always had to make an entrance. Basically he needed to rough up some of his men to make a point and then act all casual and nonchalant about it. And then the intruder would strut up through his office and act like nothing had happened.

He'd probably drag in the dirt and mud from the streets across his exotic carpet, too. The bastard.

And he had a guest. A pretty young woman, tall, a dark haired brunette and even under the armor woven into her shirt he could see a nice rack on her chest.

"What do you want?" he shouted at the door. Leaning back in his chair he decided to get it over with. He took a look at the jug of blue-purple liquid with small little _things_ swimming around in it and poured a glass. The man swirled it as the door clicked open. "Only you could get by security."

"I'm that good?"

"Yeah, you're that good." The man took a sip of his drink and scowled. The intruder was smiling to himself, to taunt the man. And he'd dragged the mud in. "Don't preen. Because I knew you were coming, I told them not to kill you." The man sat a little more upright to glance over the intruder's shoulders. "Just you, Nyklos, and her, huh or are you going by another name today? Do you want to pay for my fucking carpet!"

The change in attitude between playful questions and hostility was enough to force Nyklos to stop, look back at the mud, and mouth an apology.

"Nyklos would be fine," the Tok'ra said, holstering his pistol and snapping his head for the side for Kiva to join him and the hairy man. "It's good to see you again Zero." He picked up a napkin and held it out. "Bit of a mess."

The hairy man snatched the napkin, using it to clean up quickly and dab his forehead. He threw it back at Nyklos's chest. The Tok'ra just let it fall.

Zero was the hairy man's code name. For all the effort Nyklos/Marteen had put into learning this man's true identity they never had. He didn't exist in the Spire's databases and he was an enigma to the local police and security forces. Nyklos had the suspicion the man's face was fake, a product of extensive surgeries and augmentations, which added one more layer to the secret identity.

"Thanks… yeah, I got a little frustrated my men didn't put up a better fight… even if I told them to go easy." He leaned back. "A little too easy!" He shouted, hoping someone who wasn't complete unconscious might hear him.

"You don't seem too pissed," Nyklos stated, holding up what looked like a fried computer chip of some kind Zero was using as a paperweight. Zero's office was decorated with everything ranging from fine art to knock knacks one could find being peddled in the street. "Little bit-"

"Meh," Zero cocked his head and leaned back casually, wiping his papers and hands. "The job is so very stressful as is, Nyklos, you can't get too worked up all the time." He sounded sarcastic. "It's hard finding good, decent hired guns, right?"

Nyklos shrugged. He'd been seeing Zero for years. Soon though, Marteen would be forced to abandon Zero's services. A Tok'ra aged much more slowly than a human. The youthful appearance he kept Nyklos at would raise suspicions in about a decade.

"Who's she?"

"No one you need to know," Kiva answered him. The pistol she was carrying was being tapped on her thigh uneasily. A flash bomb was in her other hand and Zero saw a stun canister hooked on her belt. She was staring at a bulge on the side of his head. "Is that an implant?"

Zero touched the right side of his skull. "You're familiar with the technology? Ah… so you're not from one of the backwater shit stains of a world?" He cackled. "Good, good! I like her already, Nyklos."

Kiva mentally shuttered. She'd heard of some species and humans who would augment themselves with technology. It was uncommon on Lucia and anyone with augmentations of 'additions' hid them well. Netan was known to employ some, rumored to at least.

Here, in the City of Spires, Zero would most likely not attract attention. The people wore large head coverings or scarves, and many concealed their faces. The majority of natives wore loose fitting clothes, vests and jackets, and long sleeves. Korshana had never been a welcoming culture and outsiders were expected to fit in, shut up, and not make a scene.

One of the additional benefits Zero had was that the city was populated by millions, with nearly twice the population of Ir Ibas, and spread partly over a mountain chain and a long, flat plain.

Like Lucia or many of the worlds of the galaxy there was an odd and eclectic mix of the advanced with the primitive. Residence would cook on open-flame stoves while protecting their homes with energy weapons or use horse and cart to deliver craft goods to the dozens of merchant ships waiting in Spire's star port. Spires stretching over a hundred floors high dotted the city while old stone buildings were everywhere else.

Nyklos came forward, his boots touching the desk and he leaned down, eyes narrowed, and peered at the glass Zero was drinking from. "What the hell are you drinking?"

"Saj'ka water…" Zero took a respectable gulp, a little less than what would be considered rude. "Imported from eighty light years away. These are saj'ka fish. Drink one glass a day and it'll extend your life by twenty. It's quite expensive, Nyklos, and far too good to waste on you… but not her."

His smiled reeked of perversion. Kiva sneered. Her tensing muscles pulled at the leather coat she was wearing, made all the tighter with the thin layer of armor under her black shirt.

Kiva looked down at Zero's desk and over at his computer. She pushed her chin towards it and Zero glanced over, rolling his eyes.

"You've gotten fat. Really fat, Zero, you've let yourself go… surgery, right?"

"People get surgery to look young and beautiful, not fat and old." He deadpanned, tone flat and steady.

"Whatever," Nyklos dismissed with a wave.

"We need information," Kiva said, putting the flash bomb into a satchel, balling a hand to a fist and lowering it onto the table. "We're not here to play games."

"Obviously." Zero replied with a dry tone. He coughed. "Sorry, the saj'ka fish tickle the throat… what about my men, you?"

Kiva took the pistol from its holster and slammed it onto the table. "Chem-stun rounds. They'll be awake in an hour."

The Tok'ra tossed a holographic emitting onto the table. Zero punched the little 'on' button a short video, fifteen seconds long, played of massive gray ships peering down at a planet, firing off flak bursts at death gliders.

"I want to know who owns these gray ships, who they belong to and where I can find them." He pointed at the still image of a large vessel, the script on its hull, a landing pod reading '_Valkyrie_', the translation courtesy of the SGC and Selmak. "These people stood up against the Goa'uld with ships. How rare is that?"

"Rare," Zero replied, his eyes going dark. "Someone was either very brave, very stupid, or both. Goa'uld don't take kindly to the status quo being interrupted… Korshana's been paying increased tribute to their High Council to keep us unoccupied." He sighed. "Fools." Zero saw Nyklos's expression and he waved at the hologram. "These people, these people who own these gray ships. They're fools."

"Fools who came from the Tanshaw Traverse, Zero..."

That piqued Zero's interest. He sat stiff. "The Traverse? What part?"

Kiva shrugged, leaning on the desk. "We don't know, Zero. We assume so. No one else has seen them before. And that planet," she nodded to the hologram, "was on the edge of the Traverse, five hundred above the rimward Sirkan Cluster and fifty above the cluster's midpoint. It was called Geri'shak by Sokar."

"Sokar was building weapons there. SG1 and SG8 of the Tau'ri went and blew up the facility and got taken away by those gray ships after being attacked by Sokar's ground forces… whoever they were came in and did a fine job pulping the Necropolis Guard and Jaffa attacking the Tau'ri position. A Tok'ra operative sent a message back to their command that two motherships were approaching and they were going to give chase."

"If Sokar wants weapons I can hook him up."

Nyklos and Kiva were not amused. The Tok'ra banged a fist on the table. "Tell us what you know."

"You're working for the Tok'ra, Nyklos. Fuck them," he sneered. "Corrupt, arrogant fucks who'd sacrifice an entire planet to kill a System Lord."

"Damnit, Zero." Nyklos stood, throwing his hands on his hips. "I work for who pays me. You give information to people who pay. I could give a Serrakin ass fuck who pays me, as long as I get paid for the job."

Zero stared at him a moment. "No one goes into the Traverse so I don't go there. No money to be made if no one goes so no one cares. But… you're in luck. I heard some recent news. Only now does it actually make sense," Zero said, bobbing his head.

"What is it?" Kiva demanded. She frowned at Nyklos. She knew that he knew she wanted to get this job over with. The Tau'ri could suck on vacuum for all she cared.

"What is the payment for the information?" Zero held out his hand. "Since we all do this for the money. Give me my money."

"Of course." Nyklos unhooked a small carry bag from his belt and tossed it into Zero's hand. The stones rattled and when Zero dumped the contents, glistening beautifully in the light. Blues and reds and yellows lit the room. "Ker stones… valuable."

"Enough to buy a small fleet," Kiva elaborated. "They weren't easy to come by." Again she looked at Nyklos, this time with a little glitter in her dark brown eyes. Acquiring the stones had been… very, very fun. Intoxicating.

"No, my dear," Zero whispered, "they certainly aren't." His lips thinned into a small line and he stared between Kiva and the Tok'ra. He could tell the woman was displeased at being called 'dear.' No matter. "You want information on where these ships are now, or any information pertaining to them?"

Nyklos cross his arms. "Obviously."

"One moment." Zero closed his eyes, a smirk creased his lips for a moment and then his eyebrows pulsed up and slowly descended. He was nodding to himself. "Have you heard of Rhadmet?"

"Of course, Zero, he commanded the planet's garrison. He was the Haykos, in charge of the place."

Zero shook his head slowly, frustrated and let out a long but shallow breath. "No, not his command. Him. The man… well, the glow eyes. The rumors were he was a sadist, fuck anything that had a hole and a pretty face and gladly send his Jaffa to die. He took credit for others… yeah, he won a few here and there but lost most of his battles but be played the political game well, being at the right place at the right time, pawning responsibility for failure onto others." He paused for a heartbeat. "He was an example of everything wrong with the glow eyes, their old guard… too inept to rule properly and too powerful to be destroyed. He's into the whole glow eyes violent oppression of the masses, executions, torture, that sort of thing. Horrible condition for us to be in… How the man acts tells me how he will die. Apparently he died."

"So the gray ships were victorious? SG1 and SG8 are alive?" Nyklos demanded, annoyed at the lack of any real answer. Zero was the man many a Tok'ra would use, posing as anything but Tok'ra. Zero hated anyone with a symbiote.

The High Council disliked dealing with the man- he hated Tok'ra and Goa'uld alike, calling them both glow eyes, and would easily and quickly sell out a Tok'ra agent to mercenaries or soldiers of fortune wanting the bragging rights, and increased fees, of bagging a glow eyes. That's why Marteen stayed in the shadows, talking quietly to Nyklos only in his mind, and never manifesting in any way.

Marteen didn't want to give himself away. Rumors surrounded Zero and other Tok'ra who'd revealed themselves. Or who had been tricked into revealing themselves. Zero had been the last man they'd ever seen.

"Yes…" he tented his fingers over the holographic display and then brought his right hand down to shut it off. "Interesting… two motherships, according to my sources, were destroyed deep within the Traverse. Sokar tried to keep it a secret, but you know me… tidbits here and there. Neberatu dealt out punishment."

"Damnit… just tell us." Kiva cursed. "We don't have time for this Nyklos." They'd already wasted weeks and there were other assignments she could be carrying out for Netan which would serve the Lucians far better than this.

"A Goa'uld returned to Delmak, defeated. Sacmis. She commanded two _Ha'tak_ attack ships sent to Geri'shak. The puzzle pieces fit now. I was wondering where those two ships went off to… huh." Zero shrugged, closing his eyes. "It's unfortunate. I was compiling a dossier on Sacmis. She was one of those up-and-comings, one of the Goa'uld you really have to watch out for because she wasn't fucking crazy like the old System Lords." He opened his eyes, looking at Kiva and Nyklos. "She was smart, cunning, and very good at what she did. Given a few more centuries I could have seen her as a System Lord. Smart, that one."

"Can you tell us anything else?" Nyklos asked, shifting his weight. He was still playing with the paperweight, running his fingers along its sides as he stood and tried to patiently wait for Zero to just speak plain and reveal everything he knew.

Zero nodded slowly after finishing off the last of his 'life extending' elixir. "Yes. She was punished by Neberatu, sent to prison somewhere." He tapped the desk. "You know how the glow eyes are; fail and either be executed or exiled to die in disgrace… makes you wonder how those slimy snakes stay in power, doesn't it?" He hummed. "Oh, as for which prison, I don't know. With Netu gone it could be any of a dozen hellish places Sokar built before he transformed Netu… pity he wasn't caught in the moon explosions. If I were you I'd checked Memta first. If she's not there, just pick whatever prison, I don't know."

"So that's it?"

"Well, I have some information on Tau'ri operations if you want."

Kiva crossed her arms.

Nyklos tossed the paperweight up in the air and caught it, repeating a few times. "All I need to know is where SG1 and SG8 are. I couldn't give a fuck about any more Tau'ri, Zero." While not necessarily true he didn't have any more forms of hard currency on his person and information wasn't free. If Nyklos was too slow to reject the offer and Zero revealed it, Zero would demand payment.

"Fine." Zero inclined his head towards his shoulder. He brushed his thick hair back, which was starting to grease. "Just… this is a freebie; be careful. Ever since the glow eyes were defeated they haven't gone in there. The place is barren, _almost_ lifeless. I don't know of any star portal address to any worlds in that region beyond the periphery. In my line of work you here things. Little things that don't make sense, not until it's too late, Nyklos."

Nyklos felt a shiver from the warning. He saw Kiva's shoulders shake as well. There was something faint in Zero's tone. A man who knew everything and was afraid of no one, a man who put bounties on the heads of Goa'uld, who defied warlords and self-proclaimed gods now seemed to be afraid of ghosts and shadows. Afraid of rumor.

"I'll keep my ear to the ground, Zero… maybe I'll be able to give you some information, have you owe me?"

Zero just gave Nyklos a dispassionate look. He didn't expect the spy, assassin, or whatever Nyklos called himself today to live up to his promise.

"Can I have that back?" Zero pointed at the paperweight.

"Sure." Nyklos tossed it. "That oval thing, a computer chip, it's fried, worthless… though I can see you have some uh, electic tastes in art." He looked around. The man did have some weird tastes ranging from nude to modest paintings, strange little knick knack figurines, some shriveled and dried head, and dozens of other little things. There was even some weird sign with a fat bearded man in a red suit holding a bottle of some kind.

Zero shrugged. "I found it near the Tear Drop Nebula, in the dirt. It has eight sides. The number eight is lucky in my faith." He put the paperweight down. "I'd advise you speak to Sacmis or find out something in Delmak. If you want to find Sacmis… how you get a glow eye to speak against its will is up to you. I'd suggest torture. If you want, see my assistant outside, and she'll provide you with a list of suitable equipment and paraphernalia for torturing a Goa'uld. If you do torture her, make it slow, enjoy it. You'll need to find where Neberatu sent her… and if you can, blow up Sokar's palace or something, Nyklos. You're good at explosives. Then I'll owe you one." He winked. "Blow up Sokar's palace and you'll get freebies from me for now on. How 'bout that?"

Nyklos licked his lips and his eyes looked barren. With a casual 'meh' he waved goodbye to the information broker and escorted Kiva out with a hand on the small of her back.

The pot-bellied information broker sat quietly as the two left, playing with his burned out computer chip, running his fingers around the oval core set in the middle.

* * *

AN:I also want to thank Dusel for reading this chapter and giving pointers.

Anyone who guesses what/who the fat bearded man is holding a brown bottle get's One Internet. ;-) (But there is a plot element in there, too).

Thank you for reading, I hope everyone enjoyed that chapter. A bit filler-ish, yes. I wanted to get Marteen/Kiva back in and I had them set to reappear a few chapters back, but it didn't really work until now.

There's a lot of named characters though some won't be making any big appearances.

I want to include some politics in this. The politics in the Colonies are difficult to pin down, based on their government in this story being more of a confederation with worlds maintain independent governments. I'm gonna try and keep it to the 4 parties I've described for the most part, but there'll be some others at the planetary level. The Quorum is still a Quorum of Twelve but each Delegate has staff and aides who also sit in committees and do other tasks for them. The People's Council is very much the Colonial version of the House of Representatives, but with more PCers.

I'm sure the paperweight and what it is is obvious. A few things in the chapter will be touched on later as our favorite band of crazed robots start to make appearances- which will be soon.

I hope everyone enjoyed, please review, and I want to get the next chapter up as soon as possible.

Thank you.


	13. Chapter 13

AN: Sorry about this big delay. This chapter just wouldn't come together, and this chapter is actually only a piece of what I was planning to do. Operation Home Star (the one to get SG1 to a gate to dial Earth) will be dealt with next chapter.

Just a remind that _Caprica_ is not canon for the story but merely inspiration. The reason for this clarification will be very clear in the second scene.

There's some new/old characters who are introduced and who will be worked into the story as the time line progresses. I also too some creative leeway with these characters' relationships, which will be very clear in the third scene.

And thank you to the reviewers who have taken time to review. It is very much appreciated and constructive criticism is welcome. Please enjoy the story and if everything goes well, the next chapter should be up much sooner than 2 months.

* * *

**City of Augustus, Picon**

**Colonial Fleet Headquarters, the Rotunda annex**

Allison Vasic quietly sighed and looked up after checking her wrist watch, her eyes resting on Colonel Michael Tassi, Vasic's XO, and his chin dimpled as he made an exaggerated angry face before rolling his eyes. They heard a click and a small shuffle. Down the hall the plain brown wooden door to the room holding the Command Review Board opened and Lt. Colonel Yannis, Uppity, exited. Vasic could tell he was upset, the way he paused before turning towards the group.

A sailor, with a black armband with the letters FP, Fleet Police, shut the door behind the colonel and stiffened, trying to burrow a hole into the wall with his stare.

The CO of _Gorgon_ straightened and played with her dress gray's sash, finally giving it a good tug and mentally nodding that everything would soon be over, that her commander and more importantly, good friend, would be cleared of any 'wrongdoing' or possible negligence.

And gods, what she would give to be a fly on the wall in that room.

This had the underpinnings of Madison all over it again. Vasic wasn't the type of woman to say Adama had been in the 'wrong place at the wrong time.' They were right where they were supposed to be, the attack hadn't been Adama's fault, and pursuing whatever had created that damned particle Amorak and Baltar had gotten so excited about was the common sense thing to do. But when did common sense enter into the equation when politicians and admirals wanting to cover their collective asses ever matter?

Basically blame the Old Man for doing his duty, acting courageously, and not blinking when faced with not only a potentially superior enemy, but an _alien_ enemy!

An what kind of message would this CRB hold? There were always automatic hearing triggered if a ship was lost, from a Viper up to, and gods forbid, a battlestar. Vasic could count on one hand the number of times a _commander_ or higher had been called in to answer formally after combat. And gods, she'd witnessed some boneheaded and fraked up tactics during the Cylon War which amounted to basically human waves, which had been conveniently ignored during the spate of post-War hero making.

Vasic didn't doubt her skills as a commander and she damn well didn't doubt Bill's skills one bit. Battlestar commanders were rigorously trained and selected. There were thousands of warship commanding officers but barely a hundred battlestars; the Fleet could be extremely, excruciatingly picky when it came to promotion from colonel to commander to battlestar CO.

Bill had done everything right, Vasic was sure of it, and honestly, looking back, he'd been far more restrained then she'd have been. He hadn't wanted a fight, not then, because he wasn't stupid. Aggression and imaginative tactics were drilled into the brains of all Fleet officers but so was survival; you don't win wars dying for your planet, you won wars by making the enemy cock sucking, cunt licking fraker die for his.

And Vasic gave a hard nod to reaffirm those thoughts.

She saw the scowl, even from ten meters, on the air group commander's face. He wasn't an overtly emotional man, very restrained, but he wasn't doing a good job hiding his feeling. If he even was trying.

None of them were in the mood. They'd been here for hours and hurricanes were pounding their way up the coast, closer and closer to Augustus. The last thing any of them wanted was to be stuck here at the HQ overnight or on this planet any longer than they had to be. It felt dirty just being here for the sole reason of testifying in Bill Adama's CRB.

"Well, that was interesting, sir," Uppity remarked as he walked by the commander, plopping down in a seat and rubbing his temples. "I didn't know if they were admirals or politicians." He wrinkled his nose.

"This is what happens," Tassi said, "when people act like cowards."

Vasic held up a hand. "Come on, Mike." She saw the look from Uppity. "You too, Uppity. The admirals in there are doing a job, fraked up as it is, but they're not that." The commander shook her head as Tassi just shrugged one shoulder lazily.

"Perfect day though for this, right?" He snickered.

There was a flash of lightning and a loud, whipping crack of thunder outside. Rain had battered the city last night, cleared for an hour or so this morning, and then started again. Every space ship not in space was at least a hundred klicks inland from Augustus and half the staff at Fleet Headquarters was at home. Tomorrow only critical personnel would be in the complex.

"They should have just issued a decision with a report like they always do," Tassi stated dryly. "This is just-"

"This is what happens with a gods damn Prog as SecWar," Uppity grumbled.

"Hey." Vasic tone was warning enough, not much else needed to be said. It wasn't like she was a fan of the Secretary, but the military was controlled by the civilians completely now. "Maybe they're putting on a show and he'll get a slap on the wrist and a letter of caution," she offered as a concession to the agitated men.

Or a letter of reprimand, she thought, which would make him a terminal commander, get him booted off _Valkyrie_ and end his career. The LOC would expire within two years and while it was generally reserved for young hot shots needing a good kick in the pants and a lesson in humility, it wasn't something close to damning.

Uppity crossed his arms. "I'm sure I wasn't the only one going in thinking this would be easy. The civilians don't know how to handle this- tell and cause a panic, cover it up and hope for the best, damn whoever gets in the way."

"How much longer can the government cover this up, anyway?" Tassi asked. He motioned at the commander. "You had a reporter call you."

Vasic's eyebrows rose to acknowledge and she saw Uppity's head cock quizzically. "Some reporter called me two nights ago, Uppity," she explained. "He wanted an anonymous source to tell him what'd happened out there. I don't know…" she shifted in her seat, uncrossing one leg and then crossing the other. "This whole thing… it won't be a secret for much longer, it's too big. Too many people know."

Tassi's fist smacked his open palm. "And we need men like Commander Adama to lead us and hit that son of a bitch Sokar as hard as we can."

"Unless the board sacrifices him."

"Maybe, Uppity," Vasic said, swallowing. "But he's got allies on the Board. We can't do anything now so just…" she held up a hand, "just let's sit here and wait. They're done with all our testimony so we should have something soon."

"You know," Colonel Tassi said to Vasic, "I could be home, maybe lounging around the pool, smelling fresh cut grass, throwing a tennis ball to the dog…" he raised his chin and pretend to smell non-existent grass. "But this is just grandstanding. They'll run their dog and grog show and it'll end up being a slap on the wrist. Most likely." He balled his hands into fists and crossed his arms, looking every few seconds at the door.

Yannis rubbed his chin. "I just hope the admirals come through for him."

Admiral Corman and Vice Admiral Marak were in there, offering their quiet support to Adama. When Vasic had gone in they'd been sitting with stone faces, listening to the Fleet Investigators present their 'findings'. A few others were seated in the gallery, mostly just staff officers for Marak or Corman, with Corman's chief of staff noticeably absent.

Allison knew of the mission on _Argus_, since they'd asked for opinions on how best to deal with Goa'uld should they be encountered, but the specifics and destination were compartmentalized, and she didn't have the necessary clearance which bothered her if she thought about it.

Another half hour passed in relative silence. Vasic, Yannis, and Tassi didn't say much more than a few words to each other after their brief conversation, their moods dark and their minds elsewhere, concerned with larger and more important things than futile complaining.

The storms outside intensified and thunder cracked and rumbled a few times a minute.

Commander Vasic was about to say something pessimistic to go along with her XO when they heard the doors opening. Colonel Tigh was the first out and Yannis, Tassi, and Vasic were on their feet before he was a step out into the hall in their direction. He looked left and right as he ran a hand through his thinning white hair and seeing the three of them, arched his eyebrows, sighed, and walked over at a brisk pace.

They assembled into a little group.

Vasic could read the expression on his face. Unfortunately he always looked like he'd just sucked on some sour hersin fruit. Either that or he always looked pissed off. "I don't know if that's your happy face or pissed off face, Saul," she said, trying to break a little of the tension. "It's over?"

"Oh, it's over." The _Valkyrie_ XO gulped and looked behind him.

Admiral Corman, Vice Admiral Marak, and Commander Adama all exited. Adama stopped and looked back, but the two admirals were talking with him, motioning for him to follow. Vasic thought she saw a slight nod and there was a moment of release and relief. She let her muscles relax for just a few precious seconds.

She felt disappointed he wasn't coming back himself to talk to them. She'd have to call or go over to his _Valkyrie_ later. Then she remembered he was heading back to Caprica for Lee's graduation. Maybe she'd drop by his house and see how things were? She needed to get back to Caprica anyway-

"What'd they say, sir?" Yannis asked, shifting left and right and brining Vasic's attention back. His eyes darted between the XO and CO and admirals disappearing down the hall.

"Letter of Caution."

"Thank the gods," a few of them sighed in unison.

Tigh held up a hand. "I wouldn't celebrate yet." He grumbled. "An LOC but Corman and Marak went on the line for him. You all didn't see it. This board was…" he trailed off, "not right. I don't know."

Vasic frowned. "What?"

Saul's shoulders dropped as he explained the real problems. His forehead wrinkled right before he grumbled.

"The politicians don't care about the damn aliens as much as they do the secret missions. Not in the fraking sense they put it. There were other missions dealing with the Cylons," he said in his typically grumpy voice. "The whole secret missions thing and they're afraid they're gonna get caught with their hand in the cookie jar and this whole cover up will blow up in their faces." The colonel's nose wrinkled. "The scapegoats are ready."

"The commander?"

Saul shook his head. "No, thankfully, not him, too low. Corman and Marak somehow convinced the powers that be to keep the Old Man as _Valkyrie_'s CO. Those two are done though. Admiral Corman resigned his commission yesterday and Admiral Marak accepted a reassignment to be the commander of Recruiting Distract Nine… on Aquarion."

"You can't be serious?" Vasic asked. She saw the others couldn't believe that. "That's political suicide if Prestiok is going after the admiral. And a career ender for Marak… damnit, he's a good man."

"I don't have the full details." Saul breathed in. "Corman talked about the integrity and duty of an officer for a few minutes… but whatever it was, it was all a show. The Board went in knowing he'd resigned and that Marak accepted responsibility and has been reassigned. I got the impression it was by Secretary Prestiok."

"So what happens now?" Tassi asked.

"Marak's committed career suicide," Vasic pointed out, "from a task group commander to recruiting. He was good." She lowered her voice. "It's a gods damn shame."

If she'd been in the position she'd have straight up resigned. Viktor Marak had been in command of five battlestar groups, dozens of front line warships and over a hundred and twenty thousand men under his command. And now he'd fallen on his sword and was reassigned to the colony with the lowest recruitment, per capita, of any Colony. Lower than Sagittaron and even the moons.

Then Vasic's stomach knotted and she wondered if Prestiok had forced the man to retain his commission and endure such an embarrassing reassignment. Task Group Six Seven had been the main group assigned to clandestine missions. Viktor Marak had been the Fleet element who had orchestrated many of the reconnaissance missions into Cylon space and had worked intimately with FID. She remembered when _Gorgon_ had been assigned to Six Seven and hearing rumors that Marak had been a part of one of the myriad clandestine groups which had operated during the War and after before everything had been streamlined and reformed once the War ended.

"If the secretary wanted someone to fall on their swords, he got two admirals," Saul said, "and they did it for another reason, too." The group waited. "They're not completely fraked-up idiots at the Pinnacle. We're the only ones with experience fighting the Goa'uld…"

* * *

**Delphi City**

**Caprica**

Smelling the flowers, a sweet summertime southern white tulip Carolanne had loved, William Adama took his time walking down his driveway. He let the sounds of his boots clicking on the stones relax him and the sun warm him.

He was home, for now, and was determined to enjoy it. He'd let the sun beat down on him, pour a glass of fine ambrosia, throw on a pair of sunglasses and relax in a lawn chair. That was his plan starting in oh, thirty, forty minutes.

The other flowers were in bloom, the smell of sage almost intoxicating as it filled his nostrils. Birds were flying high or chirping in the trees. A squirrel jumped from a low hanging branch onto a window sill and then leapt onto the ground, disappearing under some bushes. Everything- almost- had been as he'd left it.

His car was out on the driveway. The curtains were drawn. The Colonial flag wasn't raised as it should have been, as Carolanne did when he was on deployment or his duty called him away for the day or night. And there was a box, stamped with some strange square logo with a ring around it… 'Delphi to Anywhere, Arnu Brothers Moving Company' in bold, black letters.

"Frak…" he whispered. His hand was on the door knob, his key out. The lock clicked opened. It sounded louder, sending a child down his spine. He turned the handle and pushed. "Frak…"

The idea of a relaxing afternoon, foot up outside with that fine ambrosia quickly began to dim.

The house was empty. Mostly empty. A few of his things were still there; a couch, a chair. There was a TV on the floor, unplugged. All of his commemorative shot glasses from the squadrons and ships he'd served on, which Carolanne had hated. His heart skipped and he was quick to get to his office. Relieved to see his prized possession still untouched he closed his eyes for a moment and let the revelation sink in.

Carolanne had left him. Rage, fear, betrayal, and finally understanding all swept through his thoughts simultaneously. He understood; the fights, the drinking, he understood it all. This was the natural conclusion to years of… years of everything going wrong and everything being ignored, swept under the rug, and the pretending nothing was wrong.

Adama heard a slight commotion behind him, the sound of a glass touching the granite countertops in the kitchen. He sighed and turned, walking slowly in, like the sound of his steps would offend the gods. He turned a corner and stopped in the threshold of the empty kitchen. A pile of paper plates, still in their plastic wrapping, was all that remained. And some plastic utensils. At least Carolanne had left something for him to eat on and with.

Though the speed she'd cleared the house was surprising. She must've done it last week, when he'd been on Picon. Or a few days ago when he'd had to go to Gemenon Fleet Station or… he snickered, there were so many chances for her to have done it. A little piece of him was surprised she'd waited this long.

The commander looked over at the woman sitting in the kitchen, sitting patiently, reading a magazine, the afternoon sunlight making the paper look glossy. He took off his glasses and held them loose in his hand.

"You're looking well," he said to the older woman sitting at the breakfast bar. She had a small bottle of Ambrosia opened, and a little bit of the light green liquid in a glass. "I didn't expect you." He gestured at the bottle. "A little early?"

One of the images in the magazine caught his eye as it started to move, advertising some sort of cosmetic.

"Hmm… no, you never do," she smiled down at the ad, her fingers outlining the perfume bottle. "I'm glad your CRB went well. I'm sorry about Corman and Marak. It's a shame." She eyed the glass of ambrosia, smiled at it and took a sip. "I figured you'd want some." She pushed her glass towards him.

The commander snorted and took one, big drink. This ambrosia had been chilled instead of the usual room temperature it was generally served at. He pushed up his sleeve and looked at his watch; five hours and seven minutes. But with how Caprica and Picon's rotations were, it was actually _earlier_ in the day on Caprica than when he'd left Picon.

She'd probably known the results of the CRB immediately after it ended. Did she have anything to do with it; did she issue some threat, forcing Corman to fall on his sword or Marak to get reassigned? Frak.

"I think it's been two years, Tammie."

"You know I hate it when you call me that, _Willy_." She smiled back and in a flash, had her arms around him. She gave a tight squeeze. "It's okay to hug your sister." She held on for another moment. "You were never one to show much affection… not after mom died."

He sat half facing her and half facing the refrigerator. He pulled a glass and poured himself a drink. "Yeah, well, I didn't have a good teacher."

"He talks about you. Dad's proud of you." The commander took a sip and look at her. She detected the ever-present dislike glittering in his eyes when talking about their father. "You should visit him."

"Maybe. Why are you here?" He had a feeling, and with Tamara it was never a good one. If he could describe their relationship, it'd be 'fraked up' or 'strained'- an understatement if there ever was one.

How many people in the Fleet had a brother or sister or mother or father or any family member like Tamara?

"And so the commander comes right to the point." Tamara Adama stood and smoothed her power suit. Her heels clicked on the marble floor. "Carry called me, told me she was going to divorce you, as you've probably figured it out."

"She never liked you calling her that."

"She never liked anything I did." Tamara cut her brother off with a hand gesture. "She never got used to the 'lifestyle' of having someone like me in the family. She thought I was bad for her image and her little circle of friends." She finished with a heavy roll of her eyes. "I think she called me to clear the air… afraid I'd do something to…" she sighed, "that I'd do something negative to her. Your ex-wife had an imagination." She walked over to him and straightened the collar on his uniform. "Hell, I think she blames me for your problems. Whatever lifts her ship is fine by me."

The commander sat there, not completely oblivious to his passive-aggressive expression. His sister had an odd way of trying to make him feel better; if she was trying to make him feel better should she have sounded so callous and dismissive about accepting blame for his marriage? Adama's lip curled up and he gently shook his head, looking back up at her with tired, deep blue eyes.

Tamara turned her back and stared out the large kitchen window at the pond in the back.

"Well, you look good, Tamara."

His sister looked herself over, nodding her agreement. "I'd like to go to Lee's graduation. It'd be nice for them both to see their favorite aunt." She turned her head and winked at him. "And I haven't seen them in a long time… how long's it been, Willy?"

"You're their only aunt. And you know why you haven't seen them."

She turned and walked back over slowly. Her glass still had two sips worth, but she downed it in one. Tamara placed the glass on the countertop just a little harder than necessary.

"Willy, I've stayed away like you asked. I've kept you out. Lee and Zak have never been near anything," she paused, "you're my only family, Willy."

He kept his scowl, but he lightened his tone. "I certainly can't stop you from seeing them." There was a pause. "They're your family, too."

"Ha, thanks," his sister chuckled to relieve a moment of building tension, "for the enthusiasm." She played with her hands a moment. "So you know, we've gone… semi-legitimate, Willy."

Adama snickered. "Semi-legitimate," he repeated under his breath. "When did this happen?"

He also wanted to know what 'semi-legitimate' could even _mean_.

Tamara shrugged. "Oh, not too long ago, but I've been trying to take us that way for a while now. Section Five and Seven's been cracking down. It's not like it used to be before unification. Or so I've been told. Now with all the Colony-wide LEOs running around, it's harder to do the business I was doing."

"I can imagine." He looked off, presenting a side to her.

"It's a business, that's all it was," she replied coolly. "I did it honorably. Some of those other frakers…" she held up a fist, chest high. "Never mind, that's neither here nor there, little brother."

Adama looked at his sister, a spitting image of his mother and father, and a natural successor to their father's lifestyle. The commander resented that his sister had gone into the 'family business' but he could at least respect that she was upfront about it, unlike good old dad, who paraded around as a 'civil rights' attorney while bribing judges, threatening jurors, and getting murders and thieves and thugs off free.

Bill Adama had kept his sister at arm's length, for the benefit of Lee and Zak, though there were times he wondered if he'd used his children as excuses to keep himself from feeling the bitter disappointment he felt in his father transferred to his sister.

She patted her brother on the back and squeezed his shoulder. "You're my little brother, don't forget that." She gave him another squeeze. "Even if you're this big, bad Fleet commander, you're still my little brother, Willy. And it's a brave new worlds, Willy… brave new galaxy…" she winked at him. "Opportunity…" she breathed in, releasing slowly. "I know what happened out there, I know about the aliens who attacked you." They exchanged looks, the looks they'd done when one thought the other was lying. Then Tamara said it. "Goa'uld. And it's time for payback." Her lips parted, showing a line of teeth. Somehow she produced a knife, the same knife Uncle Sam had used for decades. The light gleamed off the polished metal and it was in almost perfect condition with the exception of two chinks in the blade, roughly a third the way up, and a scratch near the tip.

"Tamara… how? What are you going to do that a fleet of battlestars and an army can't?" He was calm, composed, despite her somehow knowing such highly classified details. Behind the glitter and the pomp and the glow of any civilization a dark and powerful underground festered. He was intimately associated with the one inhabiting the Colonies and with the past conspiracies run by the Ha'la'tha, the younger brother was not surprised his older sister knew.

She looked at the knife and back at him. "If there is war, battlestars won't win it alone. You'll need people, people like me, who can find the dirt and the underground, find the rot and the decay, and exploit it. Blood's thicker than soil, Willy, and they accepted their eventual return to the soil when they decided to frak with _Adamas_…"

* * *

**Colonial Fleet Academy**

**Paestum, southeast of Delphi City**

The humidity of a Delphi summer had taken a break, a short one, but just long enough for the ceremony of the Fleet Academy's newest graduating class. One thousand, eight hundred and seventeen graduating classes had come before, starting when the Fleet Academy had been the Paestum Citadel, the combined arms school to the ancient Paestum Federation before it had been folded into the Lycian Alliance, led by Caprica City.

William Adama stood in the crowd, his dress grays pressed, his medals shining under the warm sun of Cyrannus Major and the distant, cooler Minor. This was one of the rare occasions covers were required; light gray with a black strip and a golden phoenix. He hadn't worn the thing in probably eight or nine months and had been two seconds from calling up his yeoman to search for it on _Valkyrie_.

He looked at his watch to keep from making eye contact with his ex-wife, who was standing next to him, pretending everything was 'fine', for the sake of Lee and Zak. Not that it would do much good, Adama considered if the boys decided to come home at all. Lee, however, was off to Virgon in two days to celebrate his commissioning along with half a dozen classmates. Zak had done something to piss off the Commandant, again, and was on restriction and confinement for the next week and a half before shipping off to his cherry cruise.

The graduation ceremony had been quick despite the many thousands who'd walked the stage and received their diplomas. The commander could still feel the pride rippling through his body, puffing out his chest when 'Leland Joseph Adama' had been called. His son had walked proudly, smartly, and militarily across that stage, gave a strong handshake, and had been smiling wide enough his cheeks probably still hurt.

He chuckled, shaking his head at the ground. He remembered the first day, Matriculation Day, how Lee and Zak had experienced what he had and where they were now. There was the yelling and screaming of the cadre, how they were forced to push, do high knees, power V-jumps, and being woken up at 0400 to machine gun fire and cadre kicking in their doors. For the first ten days the upper class cadre had tried their patience, their physical fitness, but more importantly, their mental resolve.

On the last day his squad corporal, a mean, short, but fiery woman, now a rear admiral, had taken him and two others into one of the basements, shut the door, and turned on a space heater, working them until the walls had begun to sweat. That workout became a weekly ritual for him until Advent, the day the plebe midshipmen became fourth classmen.

Being back at the Academy wasn't all good memories. The dark ones came with the territory and like every dark memory in the Colonial psyche, it had been the Cylons to blame.

For forty-two nights during his plebe year he'd slept in bomb shelters. Twenty-one nights they'd had to help man the air defenses in Delphi City and the local townships. The next years it was slightly less and less, but he never forgot the sweat and stink of the shelters as the midshipmen crowded in or the groan of the gears as the blast doors descended.

Even with all these happy faces about him, his fists clenched in a moment's anger as he remembered _the night_. Looking southwest he could just barely see the twenty-story spire of the Hekatombaion Memorial, a black, round column

On one night, as the leaves turned brown and the weather grew cold the Cylons had struck. In the dead of night, after a raid on Caprica, they'd snuck in a transport and disembarked a dozen Centurions. They were ferocious, heavily armored and more heavily armed than any before. They'd killed the perimeter guards, disabled the sensors, and snuck onto the Academy grounds.

Adama remembered the alarm klaxons blaring, grabbing his rifle, and rushing to a defensive position. He'd fired his first round in anger that night, but hadn't hit anything. Marine security engaged the Cylons before they got too close to the barracks' complex. But a Centurion got through, like they always seemed to be able to do.

Five-hundred and fifteen midshipmen had died when a caldron bomb- the most powerful non-nuclear, Cylon-portable bomb ever created, exploded outside of a wing of the barracks.

The commander's eyes were dark until he heard a loud '_Aunt Tammie_!' from behind him. He twirled around, the memories vanishing as he saw his eldest and youngest together and exchanging hugs with their aunt. Lee had the biggest grin on his face. Carolanne was there, too, giving the boys a hug and of course, a kiss on the cheek.

"Dad," Lee said, breaking his hug with his mom. He came to a stiff position of attention and saluted.

Zak hung back, watching with an amused smile at the little bit of pomp. His brother and father missed the eye roll.

"At ease, _ensign_," the commander ordered, love in his voice, after returning the salute. "I'm proud of you, son." He grasped his son's hand tightly and with the free hand, squeezed his shoulder. "You've done yourself well."

The commander saw his other son mosey off, talking with a female midshipmen. Zak had a slick grin he was trying to hide.

"Thanks."

There was a tense moment. The commander gave a thoughtful look down and a nod, then looked his son in the eyes. "When do you go to Viper school?"

He could tell that Lee knew he knew the answer. His son humored him and answered back, but the happiness and pep in his voice wasn't enough to cover the longing in the young man's eyes or the subtle shift in posture away from his father. Adama picked up on it and felt the pain of regret; he hadn't been there.

Lee looked over his shoulder at his mom, talking with his aunt uneasily, and back at his dad. The commander wondered if Lee knew.

"Graduating is only the first step, Lee. Going to Viper school, getting your wings, that's when you become a man." The commander swallowed. "When you sit in that seat and flick the turbos for the first time and pull a hard six, you'll know."

"Zak's been thinking about Vipers, too, dad," Lee said to keep an uncomfortable silence from falling over them again. "But you-"

"His cherry cruise starts soon," Adama said. "He'll have two weeks at a Viper school, maybe that'll get him properly motivated." The commander stepped forward and lowered his voice. "You know your brother. He's come a long way since that first day and Advent, but he'll need you, too."

"He can't have us hanging over his shoulder, dad." Lee said, his tone almost scolding. He flashed a look of disapproval. "He needs to make things up for himself." Ensign Adama looked over his father's shoulder and snickered. "Well… he could still use some advice. You might want to talk to him about his cruise."

Commander Adama, expressionless, turned around to see him _flirting_ with an upper class midshipman. A young woman with blond hair tied back in a short ponytail, with her lips pursed to what would only be called a 'shit eating grin'. He shook his head and turned back, but Lee was gone, talking with his mother, giving her and Aunt Tammie hugs again.

Conflicted, the commander turned away towards his youngest. He felt regret every night not being there for the boys more, sometimes putting his needs above theirs. Would life have been better if he'd settled on a single planet, gotten an office job? He always thought he'd been doing this for them. The Fleet was an honorable profession, he could protect them from the Cylons, and his kids and wife had never once worried about a roof over their head, warm clothes in the winter, food, or who'd pay for their lessons or clothes or toys.

Civilian life had been a monumental failure, and William Adama was man enough to admit that, but only to himself, and maybe Saul. Well, yeah, he remembered, he had admitted it to Saul when he'd recruited his chronically grumpy best friend to join back up with him from those gods awful sub-light tramp freighters.

"Zak," he said to the young man's back. His son's shoulder was touching the young woman's, and he could tell by her uniform she was a rising first-class midshipman. This was borderline PDA and Adama sighed. The two spun around, the woman doing a double-take when she saw him.

"Good afternoon, sir," she said with that same pursued-lip smile and with a dimpled chin. The pep in her voice was almost too much.

"Midshipman," the commander said with a nod. He frowned at his son, whose eyes shifted left and right, knowing trouble was here. "Lee told me something about your cruise?"

"Oh… right…" Zak coughed and looked at the young woman. "I sort of uh… got reassigned, dad, to a-"

Sternly, the commander repeated what his son had said. "Reassigned from a cherry cruise?" He slowly and heavily blinked his eyes. That wasn't supposed to happen. Cherry cruises introduced upcoming thirds to aircraft, ship handling, engineering, and the Marines and it was the first time a midshipman was evaluated. Those evals would stick with Zak until he graduated and determine what he'd get on the Gold List! The commander lowered his chin. "And how did that happen?" His voice was like a weight, pinning Zak down for precious seconds.

"My fault, sir."

Zak lowered his head, the weight lifted by her save. "Kara-"

"Kara…?" Commander Adama questioned, momentarily distracted by the larger issue, his tone disapproving at the familiarity between a fourth classman and a second.

Even as a soon-to-be third and first, first names were reserved for those within one's own class. A second class-man didn't even refer to a first class-man by first name.

The young woman, Kara, snapped to attention. "Kara Thrace, sir, from Midia, a little town… well, if anything close to C-City is little, about fifty klicks north of it." She smiled at him and put herself at ease. "And um, don't get made sir, it was my fault."

Adama saw the light in her eyes, the looks from Zak to her, and the way she held herself and feared his son may be involved in a sexual relationship with this upper-class midshipman. That was the last thing Zak needed; fall into old habits and distractions. This time there would be harsh penalties.

The Academy tended to give everyone at least one more chance, provided they didn't steal, lie, or do anything heinous. But Zak could spend a year on confinement and find himself doing penalty marches every morning if he wasn't careful.

His eyes had shifted to the young woman, reading her, unconsciously transitioning into that 'Adama stare' Saul had told him he did when people got into his gun sights.

Kara bit her lip. "And sir… one more thing?" She waited until he nodded. "I'm a bit uh… well that story about _Valkyrie _and what happened… if it was Cylons you ran into out there, sir, I bet you gave them hell and kicked their fraking ass."

His son stood with his mouth hanging open, almost to the grass. His eyes were darting between Kara and his dad.

The commander had half a mind to dress her down, but for some reason, he couldn't. He was certainly able to, he'd dressed down dozens over his long career, but he just couldn't.

A part of him wanted to, but a stronger part didn't, because… he mentally frowned, searching, and not finding an answer, forced his face to relax and his body to let go of the tension. Maybe it was because the CRB had robbed him of something, or maybe it was just because the cover story and continued denials of anything happening was so disrespectful to the dead… and was it right to dress down a midshipman for such a comment? The midshipmen were taught to celebrate victory, even if that victory was costly, the ultimate goal of battles and war was to win.

He felt some connection to this young woman, something he didn't really understand, but looking at her, the young woman's blunt comment and the way she held herself, her very attitude just seemed to click something in the commander.

"I can't discuss it." He answered her with a simple, time-honored dodge. "But what is this that is your fault?"

"I got reassigned to a picket out past Sectar System or something… Dad, it's not her fault. The VTOL-"

"_VTOL?_" The commander repeated, his soft voice somehow sounding like thunder. Zak grimaced. "What VTOL?"

"I thought Lee…" Zak started and waving off towards his brother's backside.

"We took a VTOL, sir," Thrace explained, "me, Zak, and uh… a friend of ours. It was my idea. We were working penalty marches and they were offering two-for-ones, ya know, sort of an end of the year thing, 'here ya are, here's a little gift for us making your life miserable'…" she coughed, grinning at her own distraction and rubbed her neck, pushing back some blond hair. "I um… so we went to help clean them and sir, they're just sitting there, the crew chief left and one of them was the new model, the SR-97 and um…"

Adama softly snorted as a corner of his lip rose up into a smirk. He'd read of the SR-97 VTOLs in _Terrestrial Aviation_. The SR-97 was a sleek, very expensive high performance military and paramilitary VTOL designed for training, tactical insertions, and as a medium gunship. Their new Aerodyne 56 turbo engines could achieve a top speed over eighteen hundred kilometers an hour and with a pressurized cockpit and cabin, climb to an altitude of forty-two kilometers. Adama recalled it was being built primarily for the Army and for Colony-wide law enforcement agencies.

Gods, why was it he could completely see Zak doing something like this? Zak had always, always been the trouble maker of the two, always finding mischief in some way, pissing off his primary school teachers, pranking his secondary school principle by somehow getting the man's car onto the room of the school, or one of a dozen different things. But an SR-97?

"So, we took it out, dad, and before you say anything, Kara's a good pilot." Zak looked at her. "A great pilot, actually and they say she's a natural. Plus Agathon was there, and he's a good pilot, too."

"How did you take it?" The Old Man asked.

Thrace held up a finger. "Me, sir, with a little help… the new uh, security isn't as great as it's advertised."

The Old Man stood in a contemplative silence. For Zak, it was like a bubble. The shouts and screams from families around them, all the cheering and congratluations to new ensigns, it all just died down as his father's bright blue eyes turned dark.

"Zak." He was stern. "I'm disappointed. You stole an Academy VTOL-"

"We didn't really steal it, sir," Kara said quietly. "Borr-"

"We didn't steal it, dad. We borrowed it. And we brought it back." Kara nudged him and mouthed something, something the Old Man thought looked like a warning. "After we broke the climb speed record." His dad's eyes closed. "The commandant gave us restriction… and after our summer cruises we have to report back... immediately." His son shrugged, seeming to gain an exponential increase in confidence the closer Thrace stood to him. "And it was worth it. I mean, we're pretty much famous around here now." He tried to sound proud but ended up finishing with a stutter under his father's gaze.

There was more Zak wasn't telling him. Reading his son was as easy as reading a children's book. All kid's liked to think they could get away with secrets from their parents and so had the commander with his dad… though he actually had with his dad, which forced Adama's mood to darken considerably.

"Then you live with the consequences. This'll follow you."

"I got off easy. Kara and Karl got it worse," Zak complained. The young man shifted his weight, folding his arms. "It's not fair to them I get off because the commandant knows you."

Adama held out a hand and pointed, his index finger a steady centimeters from Zak's dress uniform. "First, you didn't get off. Those with seniority are always punished more…" and that all too recent memory began sapping his strength for an argument and he looked at Thrace, "and I'm surprised reassignments from cruises was all he did to you, Midshipman Thrace."

Adama knew the commandant, had served under him for three years as a divisional officer. The man was a hard ass, but fair when it came down to it, and the Old man suspected he had taken a personal interest in the futures of his son, this mischief causing Thrace, and whoever the frak 'Karl' was. He was probably one of Zak's classmates.

The young woman wasn't intimidated. "The commandant and I go back, sir."

The commander didn't need her to elaborate and that confirmed his suspicions; the commandant saw something in the young woman. And yeah, they went way back. Meaning she was constantly getting in trouble.

"Willy!" The commander turned as Tamara walked up. He cursed the timing. "Willy, let's go. Zak…" the older woman paused, smiled at him and morphed the smile into a grin when she looked at Kara. "Zak, Willy, there's a reception we need to be at shortly. And Lee wants to get some pictures with his friends. Come on." She tugged at her brother's dress grays before walking off.

The commander looked back over his shoulder as his sister marched away. He knew she'd interrupted right then for a reason, on purpose. It might have been years since they'd seen each other, but his sister knew him like the back of her hand and he knew she could read him. She'd exposed his first lie he ever told his parents at the dinner table when he was four. Tammie was still doing it.

"Zak." Adama softly nodded his head to the side. His son looked at Kara, sighed, and Adama guessed, rolled his eyes at him- what else would she giggle at? "Thrace," he said, when he was gone. His tone was somber, almost scolding, but also warm. "Be careful with him. And be careful with yourself. Whatever you did with the ninety-seven… the commandant's a good man. And I can guess this isn't the first time you've done something… _stupid_. I've seen midshipman like you…" and he didn't say was that he saw his younger self in her. "They tend to think they can keep bucking authority. It'll catch up with you. And dangerous stunts might be impressive, until they kill someone." He put his arms in front of him, grasping them at the wrist. He turned and looked back. "Carry on. And be careful." He said as he strode away, back to his family, leaving a Kara Thrace looking on enviously.

* * *

AN: So Kara and Zak are a bit of a couple at the Academy. I wanted to take their relationship and make it where they knew each other for a longer period than they did. Also, Karl Agathon was the third guy helping them fly the VTOL. they'll be recurring characters, sort of like Sacmis, in a while before they get to the fleet. The resignations of Corman and Marak's reassignment will also be explored later on; they didn't do it out of simple altruism for Adama.


	14. Chapter 14

**Planetary Body 82-32 Constellation**

**Fifteen Weeks After Contact with the Goa'uld  
**

Raptor 935 slowly pulled into orbit over a beautiful green-blue world which could have been any world in the Colonies, except for the single sun glowing millions upon millions of kilometers away.

The Raptor wobbled its wings in a playful little gesture as Raptor 926 cut its engines, the dull orange-yellow glow of its exhaust dimming, and settled into a geo-synchronous orbit of its own. Within minutes 926 had disappeared, the tan, blocky bird too far to be even a speck in the distance.

Captain Melicia Upland unbuckled her harness and moved forward, tossing herself into the co-pilots seat on Premie's left. She fiddled a little with her helmet until snagging the release and pull the face and jaw plates forward and felt the cool air of the Raptor hit her face. The temperature was a bit low, but she needed the chill to keep her awake. A couple of hours of sleep a night were starting to run their toll.

"_Raptor 935 to Argus, flight path locked into computer, continuing with orbital reconnaissance zero-six-one. Mission time… five hours,"_ Premie said over the wireless. _Argus_ quickly responded, confirming the details and sending a data packet with new information gleaned from Raptor 853's recon flight.

Premie continued running a check list while her eyes scanned the little jewel of a world below, marveling at the creation the gods' had set in motion billions of years ago.

The planet was nearly eighty-four percent water and dotted with thousands of small to medium islands, none larger than a few hundred kilometers end to end. There were two primary continents, the north boasting three fifths of the planet's population and three extensive mountain chains, with rain shadow regions and plains, and temperate climates on the coasts.

The southern continent was considerably smaller and U-shaped, with an isthmus connecting it to the northern continent at the eastern tip of the U. Mountains in the east produced a small rock desert until the coast and was sparsely populated, but in the west were lush jungles, expansive savannahs, and roaring rivers from the rain caught in the mountains and providing for extensive irrigation works.

The two were alone on the Raptor, which had been sent for a special little recon mission to what looked like a communication satellite but wasn't and then tasked with nothing more exciting than a search and doc- document everything the optics and sensors found, do not drop below X altitude, and report back to _Argus _after four hours which had taken up an orbit on the far and obscured side of the moon.

"Gods, Upland, you look like a kid during Zeus Invictus," Premie said, giving her a strange look over her shoulder. "It's just a planet."

She returned the look and added in a little eye roll. On _Valkyrie_ she hadn't socialized much with the stealth pilots, only assigned to _Valkyrie_ temporarily for the Cylon mission, but on _Argus_ the two had become fast friends. She'd also become friends with Major Usher and Captain Ophion, the only two Marines officers on the battlestar with combat experience against an alien force. The four of them had been socializing and playing pyramid and going on V-World adventures in their spare time, though Premie had been pulling a lot of CAP and recon duties for some odd reason.

"That world represents a big step for us, Premie," she whispered, locking her vibrant hazel eyes on the planet. She decided to be a little dramatic and point emphatically to it. "It's remarkable… we estimated nearly three quarters of a billion people on this world, completely cut off in the middle of nowhere. And they're an industrial society. Teal'c told us that was rare in this galaxy."

Premie tapped a control, tapped it again, and then coughed, finally getting the young captain's attention. "And it's polluted." He pointed at the spectrographic readings. "They still use fossil fuels, radio, and I'm not seeing any sort of mesh activity. They don't have advanced space flight and the world's in the middle of nowhere."

"They did get to their moon."

"Yes… wow. A probe transmitting the same radio signal over and over. What was it again?"

Upland took a moment to think then snapped her fingers. "It was; _we claim this moon for the people and government of the Great Sirisi Alliance._"

Premie shook his head. "Gah, yeah… like we aren't walking into a fraked up situation when a nation starts a space program and launches a _rocket to their moon _just to troll the enemy. It might just be easier to go down and nab the gate. We haven't seen any indication they're even using it, and that DHD thing is missing. Right?"

"And how do we take a gate which is right in the middle of a city?" She crossed her arms. "Take it? The city it's in is their capitol; four million inhabitants, half a dozen major military bases, and gods know what type of military reaction force."

Major Amorak and Gaius Baltar had modified the _Argus_ DRADIS capabilities by tying them in with the radiological sensors to scan for the large amount of naquadah in a Stargate. When _Argus_ had jumped in it had lit up the boards like a 'Christmas tree' (whatever that was) and the radiological alarms started going off; a planet in the middle of a cold war with nearly a thousand nukes was the last thing anyone had expected.

Since they'd jumped into the system Raptors had been running recon constantly, and they'd tapped into the communications. The 'Great Sirisi Alliance' was some economic and military consortium of the larger continent's north-western nation states, divided from its competitors by a mountain chain to the east and a long, expansive isthmus to the south, leading to the second continent.

There was also evidence of nuclear explosions and half a dozen devastated cities and the remnants of enough tanks and vehicles for a half dozen armored divisions.

"We could send Raptors down. We could jump them right above the city and it's in a big park… you ever done low atmo combat jump, Upland?" She shook her head. "It's not just like any jump, not even close. When I did the training I'd jumped nearly forty times in Raptor. But you feel more alive, the adrenaline, just knowing your jumping towards a planet, that ground just sitting there, sinisterly waiting for you to frak up and jump into a mountain…"

She felt relaxed enough with Premie to play around with him a little. "Okay, Commander Cain, if we want to take it do we use metron gas or do we use _Argus_ to launch a suppression bombardment across the city and kill tens of thousands?"

Premie had run the recon which had taken video of the capitol city. The gate had been spotted in the middle of a circular park, with paths radiating off the center like spokes, each leading to another monument. The 'monument park' was large, easily a good klick in diameter with a large freeway circling it, buildings, and foot traffic.

Premie gave her a 'what the frak' look and didn't hide his surprise. "Cain suggested we use metron gas? Gods damn, really?" He looked half way between shocked and disgusted.

Melicia felt the same. Deploying metron gas on a starship was one thing, but on a city? Frak. That.

"Yeah… well, to be fair, Colonel Catus made the comment off hand when Cain asked if it was possible to just take the gate." She hummed, mouthing a 'yeah'. "The colonel just stated the facts; we don't have enough troops so we'd have to go and cause mass chaos to pull it off. The only way to do that is either detonate a nuke in their atmosphere to EMP them, launch a space bombardment, or use gas. Commander Martinili and Proconsul Asselo basically said 'frak no', and she just shrugged."

The presidential envoy, Henri Asselo had been adamant in not wanting anyone hurt, and had shot down the idea of taking the gate by force or coercion. Commander Martinili, the _Argus_ CO would have to personally authorize metron gas, and he was damned well not going to be the first commander in a hundred years to use it on _civilians_.

"You don't really like her."

Melicia rubbed her neck. "We don't get along."

"Gah, okay… understatement, Upland, and she's on her way to getting a battlestar. And from what I've heard, she's an ideological clone of Admiral Cain, so yeah; she's going to be aggressive- better than nothing." He shrugged. "She's Tauron, what do you expect?"

"Hey, you're not supposed to do that." She scolded.

"What?"

"Single people out based on their colony," she said, trying to sound serious. "You did get the memo right? The president doesn't want that."

"Yeah, the grand social experiment," Premie rolled his eyes, "frak that. I can't think of anyone I know who gives a frak what colony you're from as long as you do your job. Bunch of political BF, and it's not like it's a bad thing. People from different colonies act differently but that doesn't mean we aren't in this together."

Melicia hadn't intended to start an argument. "You're in a bad mood."

"Yeah, well, I want to get back to the Colonies as soon as we wrap this up."

She studied him for a few long seconds, Premie flicking his eyes over and he put up a valiant effort to pretending like he didn't care why she was watching him.

Finally, he couldn't take the stare. "What?"

"You seem pretty anxious to get back to the Colonies… wanna see a certain major?"She grinned and bit her lower lip. Without his helmet it was impossible to hide the blush. "Yes you do." She playfully taunted.

"There's a lot of majors-"

"Uh, huh." Melicia shrugged. "But I don't know how many majors you talk about non-stop."

"No, I don't."

She smacked her lips together. "Yup, you do." The captain tapped her booted foot a moment, the sound soft in the now quiet cabin. "So… serious?"

"Meh." He raised and lowered his shoulders, trying for the most apathetic shrug humanly possible, and failing. Antony Nikon wasn't someone who was all that great at hiding those sorts of feelings. Fruity used to point out he was always oblivious about how much he talked about the women he was dated or was interested in. "Maybe. We had a few drinks and dinners, nothing big."

Melicia didn't tell him, but she'd kept tabs on the both of them and Baltar, becoming a sort of unofficial handler for everyone involved in the incident. She'd seen a little bit of the chemistry between the pilot and the scientist, and between he scientist and Baltar, too. But if Melicia had to pick sides, she'd pray that Premie got the girl rather than the insufferably arrogant and prick, Gaius Baltar.

"You're gonna be in for a rollercoaster." She said.

"A what?" He looked at her like she'd grown a third eye. "Is that FID spook talk?"

"No, an Earth idiom, means highs and lows… don't get me wrong, the major's smart and damn fraking valuable. She helped saved our asses from Rhadmet, but don't ya read any of the tabloids or anything?"

"Y- you read the tabloids?" Premie grinned, not even wanting to hold back the laughter at her expense. You. Captain Melicia Upland, the bad ass secretive spook… is really a girly-girl?"

She stared at him, cross, and hmfed, looking back at the planet. "Can we just fly to the scary nuclear missile satellite in peace, please? Anyway, I know girls like her and they're trouble."

"Hey, you started it! You speaking from experience?"

"I'm speaking from being one of those girls who caused trouble. All the fraking time. It's not like it's too hard to get young, hormonal boys to do what you want in high school and then toss 'em to the side. Especially as a cheerleader… the boys on the pyramid team were easy."

"This is too good…" He tried to imagine her in some sort of cheerleading uniform, but failed and not in a bad way. His imagination chugged along to a very happy place.

"I liked the uniform. Show off what the gods gave and cause trouble, like I said. Trouble. I was young and trouble was fun. I was popular and knew how to talk to people, read them, and tell them what they wanted to hear without lying or anything." Her lips smacks and she sighed regretfully. "It wasn't the most proud few years of my life. But yeah, I speak from experience so I can see it. Just watch it."

The sarcasm rolled off Premie's tongue. "You, being a trouble maker… frak, I'm shocked. No, really, shocked. I… I…" he snickered and she gave him a gentle backhand slap on the shoulder. "Now you get to cause trouble on a _galactic_ scale. Fun."

The Raptor moved steadily along its course, the objective of their 'special little task' finally coming into view. The satellite grew until the Raptor's RCS thrusters fired, bringing it to a stable position a hundred meters away.

"That's actually really impressive… look at that… nuclear power source." She was looking at the sensors and frowned. "Looks like a dozen missiles… eight hundred or so kilotons a piece if this is right. Shit. That satellite's made of the same substance Goa'uld ships are."

Premie keyed in a new command onto his console and images of the satellite popped up in full HD glory on a small monitory at the co-pilot's station.

"Why didn't we detect it before?"

Upland shook her head. "Don't know. My guess is our sensors aren't calibrated or sensitive enough to pick it up; we saw the radiological signatures and just imaged the damned thing, this is the closest we've gotten… looks like they alloyed the naquadah with standard heat shields. It's less than a tenth of a percent naquadah… but that's enough to increase its durability and longevity in space to probably a century or so."

"They're not going to detect us, are they?"

"With what?" Melicia asked, manipulating the telescopes in the Raptor surveillance packages. "Unless we magically become visible to radar, then no, the satellite only has radar and a small optical telescope pointed at the planet."

"It's broadcasting a message every thirty seconds. Pictures, it looks like."

Melicia nodded. "Yup. Most of the satellites up here are military and spy sats. They've got a cold war going between three or four power blocs, about forty nations, give or take."

"And so we'll be pissing off the others. How do we stop them from attacking when we get down there and make contact with the people who have the gate?"

"The gate's in a nation called the Eluurian Kingdom or something and well, it'll be a bit complicated, sure, but we move _Argus_ from the moon into a high orbit and let the people down there see what's up here. Unless they're fraking stupid, the Sirisi won't shoot off this satellite and it's not like they could hit _Argus_ anyway." She drummed her fingers. "Then we make contact with radio and then send down a delegation… you'll be our pilot, of course. If everything goes right we'll be making radio contact tomorrow and heading down shortly after that. And then we can make contact with Earth and send them back then go to the Colonies and get the others."

"Joy. The last time I was on a planet I got shot at and chased through woods by genocidal, fanatical soldiers with aliens in their guts. Just… let's carry this off without a hitch, okay?"

"Would someone really be so fraking stupid to attack us with a battlestar in orbit?" She asked. For a moment, she just watched the satellite. "Alright, let's put down a drone to keep tabs on it. I've seen enough."

Melicia desperately wanted to make a promise that this whole thing would go well, spectacularly, and that the Colonies would use this as their stepping stone into the larger galaxy. But she couldn't. Her few years in the secretive and elusive FID, combined with her natural senses gave her an almost sickening feeling as she stared down at the oblivious world, locked in their own petty conflicts, and unaware that prudence demanded they surrender their Stargate.

* * *

A single dark cloud hung over the city, a bad omen, as the Colonial delegation departed their Raptors and set foot on an alien world to a procession of honor guards, diplomats, and journalists. Captain Melicia Upland had been the last of the delegates to step foot on this alien world, her first outside the Colonies, and she felt the excitement of exhilaration of the event take hold of her and wrap itself around her.

A quick glance to O'Neill and he wasn't wide-eyed with wonder and excitement like she was. Could it be that one day she would step onto another world ten thousand light years away and feel nothing but normalcy?

She prayed it would be so. Maybe one day. But today the Fates had conspired against the Colonies and the people of this world. The moment Nazism had told them of this world, the moment the Colonial high command had chosen this world as its first world to make official contact with, its fate had been decided and its destiny became clear.

Today the Colonies made contact with one nation out of many nations and favored one nation while its enemies sat and watched, afraid, terrified and indignant.

Melicia took a step forward on the ground, soft, and covered by a green carpet. The delegation had landed in the monument park, and the smell of fresh cut grass was a welcome scent, doing its best to drown out the offensive smog.

The captain took her position behind Cain and looked back at the Raptor; two Marines, one of them Captain Ophion and Captain Nikon, donned in his jock smock, remained inside and the hatch closed quietly, sealing with a small hiss and pop.

The Colonial delegation was arranged in seniority; the presidential envoy Henri Asselo out front, in the lead by a step, with Commander Cain in the front right and Colonel O'Neill the front left. Upland was behind O'Neill and Major Usher behind Cain.

They all wore their dress uniforms and even O'Neill had had one made, and while not perfect, was ac lose approximation of his United State Air Force dress blues, though he'd said the jacket was a little more blue than he remembered and the color of the buttons was off- lost in translation, perhaps.

Major Usher, by prearrangement, was allowed to carry a pistol, which was strapped to his thigh. It was a ceremonial revolver belonging to _Argus,_ passed to the battlestar from the commanding director of the Gemenese Secret Operations Command after unification, and etched with historical Gemenese iconography.

The five of them wore thin bullet resistant vests for protection, insisted upon by Colonel Catus, the Marine commander, prior to their departure from the battlestar. The vests were hidden under their clothes, no thicker than an undershirt.

"You okay?" Usher asked quietly, leaning slightly to his left. His shoulder softly bumped Melicia's.

"Excited," she whispered. "And a little concerned… seems too perfect, doesn't it?"

"Not everything has to go wrong, trust the Gods to see us through this, Upland." He looked at her, his friendly face morphing into one of utter seriousness. "But… do you sense something?"

"I don't want to be dramatic," she whispered back, "it's just a feeling… it just feels wrong, ya know? No, it's silly." She looked around, eying the honor guards with suspicion, whose eyes were disciplined and locked forward, and at the alien media who were at the far end of the park.

"It'd be dramatic if you weren't so good at your job. Say the word…" he tapped the _Valkyrie_ insignia at the corner of his right breast. His, hers, and Cain's had been replaced with small surveillance devices, allowing _Argus_ to monitor everything.

"Right." She nodded, not taking her eyes off the civilian delegation quickly approaching them, ready to meet them in the middle of the foot path.

They'd landed right in the middle of the monument park, as requested by the Kingdom of Eluuria, and put down with one Raptor. It had been public. Eluuria had made the announcement they would be hosting alien visitors to the entire world. A boast. Taps on their communication networks had flooded with diplomatic requests for other nations to be present. These hosts were milking the Colonial visit.

Melicia thought this odd, but if they were familiar with Stargate travel, it could be somewhat commonplace.

She wondered if all this pomp and ceremony was just for some diplomatic bragging rights, and what sort of change this would have on their world.

The honor guard consisted of close to a hundred soldiers in their finest uniforms, which bordered the ostentatious and gaudy, with embroidered red and black coats, epaulettes, and black slacks with double red lines running the length of the leg. The front of the slacks, at the shins, also had a thin yellow triangle coming down from the knee to the cuff.

All the soldiers stood at attention, with rifles on their right and fixed bayonets, the metal glistening in the sun. The rifles were old and bolt action, which contrasted with the automatic rifles of the third and fourth row of the honor guard, standing at attention but in less formal uniforms, with rifles slung.

Four jet fighters roared down from the lone cloud, coming in low, only a few thousand feet off the ground, and dispensed the tri-colors from the same formal uniforms of the honor detail. They then flew off in different directions and the noise of their engines slowly fading to a rumble.

A large man, easily taller than any of the Colonials, O'Neill included, was at the end of the carpet to greet them. He had on elaborately colored and decorated robes covering the planet's analog to a business suit, with a strange, puffy tie which Upland had to consciously not stare at. He wore a small gold and silver headband with two circles, connected by a wavy piece of red metal. His eyelashes were missing and instead replaced with tattoos. The man was old, but powerful, and a set of scars were visible on his neck, pink against his the bronzed skin.

"On behalf of the people of Anlysoch, the great nation-state of Eluuria, and in the shadow of the Great Ring…" the man turned to his side, gesturing at the Stargate fifty meters away, "I welcome you to our planet and our nation. We are honored visitors from the stars have favored our nation." The man smiled. "I am Fujet Nakan vo Anlysoch, brother and emissary of the ruling king." There were other men behind him, some in uniform, some not.

He extended a hand in greeting. Asselo didn't hesitate, but grabbed it slowly, and was relieved when they shook like Colonials, and not like Earthers.

"I'm Herni Asselo, proconsul, envoy from the Twelve Colonies of Kobol." Asselo had rehearsed what he was going to say, but ended up just saying the first that had popped into his head; speeches never worked here, speaking from the heart was better. "We've travelled far in search of this world, its location given to us by an ally. We have come across the stars to seek friends. It is my honor, and the honor of the peoples of the Colonies of Kobol, to be welcomed to your world and to your nation."

Upland considered how horrible, lame really, the introductions were. How were people supposed to introduce themselves on a first contact? 'Hi, I come in peace blah blah, we're so, so excited, fake smile, fake smile, photo op…' and then the Goa'uld way, which she had to admit was fairly simple but oh so straightforward, and at least you knew where you stood: 'Hi, bow before your new lord!'

The proconsul introduced the rest of the delegation, starting with Cain and ending with Upland. The emissary introduced the men standing behind him. It was tense. While the smiles were kind and welcoming, they were fake. The eyes never lied, and Upland could see fear, concern, and trepidation resonating strongly through Nakan vo Anlysoch and the rest of his own party, especially the military officers, one tall man in particular in the back, who reminded Upland of her father. Her eyes lingered on him a second but quickly looked away when he almost sensed her stare and locked eyes back.

"Proconsul Asselo, please… I believe we have much to talk about. If you will follow me, we have a motorcade waiting, ready to take us to a place more appropriate for something of this magnitude. It is tradition among my people to eat and drink before formal discussions."

Asselo wouldn't object even if he wanted to. He simply bowed his head. "Emissary, please lead the way. It would be our honor and privilege to share food and drink with you."

"This is the best part," O'Neill said, delighted, "the new food. Always the food. Will there be cake? I'm hoping for cake."

His comment was met with a soft chuckle from the emissary. "I like him," he said, wagging a finger at O'Neill.

* * *

The ride had been short and quick. The roads had been cleared, police were at intersections, and no one was allowed on the sidewalks, only the side streets. Melicia could see the colorful crowds being held back by police as they tried to see the alien visitors passing by in the light-blue motorcade.

They were escorted into a large building and up to a top floor, with views of the city and the monument park. The delegation had eaten their meal, which had been a mix of sweet and sour, involving the ribs of some sort of game animal and the breast of a strange water fowl. This planet's analog of potatoes, carrots, and beans had been served as well, all slathered with a sweet orange glaze and a cinnamon-like spice.

Desert was missing; evidently the people of Eluuria believed food should itself be slightly sweet, to prevent it from becoming dull, and to trick the sense to maintain one's health, making a desert unnecessary. Melicia hadn't objected. The glaze was probably far healthier than some sort of cake or pie or whatever, and she wouldn't have to spend an inordinate amount of time working it off on a treadmill.

Once the meal was over the young captain had been expecting to dive into business, negotiate for the gate, and all that. However, these people utilized some sort of 'informal pre-business' post-dinner cocktail-like session as a way to introduce them to the topic which would be negotiated on prior to actual negotiations. The pace of life seemed to be slower here.

Melicia had gone to the window, outwardly to admire the view, but with the clandestine purpose of forcing someone to come to _her._ With a small glass of a disgusting alcohol she was certain could power a Viper from here back to the Colonies she took small sips, careful not to make any faces as the foul fluid washed down her throat and tickled her stomach, almost to the point of making her nauseous.

She'd had everyone take an anti-alcohol medication, which upped the capabilities of the liver to metabolize the depressant. Some obscure tribe on Aerilon utilized a similar tactic way back when, to get delegation piss drunk and then attempt negotiations, in the hopes it was to your own benefit. The spooks also used it to get people to lower their guard.

The young woman discreetly checked her appearance in the reflection of the window, and was satisfied with how she looked; she'd had her uniform tailored beyond its standard issue to a more feminine fit. She hated how the uniforms issued seemed to be one size fits all, like they were fraking pillow cases, and it was a personal pet peeve of hers to see sailors wearing ill-fitting uniforms. Melicia would have described herself as slightly OCD when it came to appearances and appearances mattered. A lot.

"The people are anxious, as is the emissary… it is difficult seeing women in uniform, especially very beautiful women" she heard, the voice gruff but measured. She turned to see a hard looking man, chiseled features and dark brown eyes which seemed shallow and distant, much like Colonel Catus. His skin was lighter than many of the Eluurians. It was the man who had reminded her of her father. "I apologize; I'm Marshall Vaniket Chetan vo Herh."

The captain smiled at his compliment. She was beautiful, and didn't take any offense to anyone saying so.

"Marshall… I'm unfamiliar with that rank…?"

"Perhaps it is best to tell you what I did then… I commanded a large force of men in the Isthmus War… armored vehicles and eighteen thousand men. Now I command many more and advise the king."

"Ah… on my world that is a 'general'… sir." The captain reflexively straightened, raising her chin and pushing back her shoulders. "It is an honor to meet you, sir." She introduced herself to him and shook his hand.

"Captain, may I ask, are there many women in your military?" The marshall's head tilted to the side.

"Yes, roughly a third of our military."

He hummed. "That's most interesting, captain. I was just watching our media report on your landing, and there has been much discussion on two women being a part of the delegation." Melicia smiled at that, finding herself at a loss of words. She had no idea why it would be an issue. "If I may captain, what do those decorations on your sash represents?" He was pointing to the bronze insignia scroll with double lightning bolts and at the four pointed stylized star.

She put her hand under each, gently touching the bottoms, as she explained her insignia and awards. "It's for our intelligence service, a designation pin, not an award, sir. This is awarded for distinction within our designated service." Upland had pointed at the Star of the Gods, but didn't realize she hadn't named it. She also had a single black cord over her left shoulder, but didn't explain it signified her as a staff intelligence officer. "This hexagon here," she touched the silver device slightly above her hip where her belt and sash met, "is for being a divisional officer or commanding a fighter squadron… junior command, basically." Explaining the pieces of her uniform, while probably interesting for the Eluurian, wasn't getting her much information in return.

"All militaries seem to be heavy on the symbols and awards," he observed.

"Symbols are important; they teach us that during training… the first day." She smiled at him and looked back out the window, taking a slow sip of the gut-busting booze. "This is a beautiful city…"

"Indeed," the marshall mused, tossing one hand behind his back. "But I sense you have a question for me…?"

Her eyebrow rose. "If I may be so bold, marshall, it was what you said earlier, about the war your nation was in… was the Isthmus War about a dozen years ago or so?"

"Hmm, yes, how did you guess?" the Marshall asked, sipping the same type of beverage Upland had twice, his shoulders subtly shivering as he downed the booze.

She didn't tell him of radiological sensors or computer estimates. "We saw the results of nuclear explosions on cities from space and based on the overgrowth of vegetation…" she trailed off, seeing the memory of the war shake the man.

Melicia had seen enough men and women with post-war fatigue in the Colonies, where a smell or a sound or an image could incite painful memories. As a little girl she'd seen her grandfather, a man seemingly built out of battle plate and fueled by tyllium, break down and cry. To this day she still didn't know what had shaken such a powerful man.

Marshall Chetan closed his eyes. "Ah, yes… yes, the Isthmus War started sixteen years ago and ended twelve years ago. It was the first war nuclear weapons were deployed against cities. I lost half my division on the Isthmus to a nuclear attack… and one of my sons. That war took a lot from us."

"I'm sorry… to hear that, sir." It had always been difficult, knowing what to say, to those who'd fought in the Cylon War after they'd shared something so personal. What could she say to a stranger about a war she knew next to nothing about? "The last wars happened before I was born, but they lasted for almost two decades. It was devastating… my parents fought in them. We fought the Cylons… a…" she hesitated. Did they know what a robot was? She shook her head, better to be vague. "The Cylons were an enemy of our own creation. Nuclear weapons were used."

"Most enemies tend to be of our own creation. We believe someone to be our enemy and we make them our enemy."

"The Sirisi?"

"When we came to this planet we were united, or so our historical texts tell us. People want power, some people don't want to give up any power, and then our ancestors split into different groups and they settled in different parts of the world," the marshall explained. "We and the Sirisi both want to control the isthmus because of its great economic value; oil, gold, copper, rare elements, uranium, and the Gerin Strip for a canal. Its been a zone of contention for decades."

Melicia took a moment to analyze her situation. The man was being upfront and forward. Was he concerned they would find out 'the truth' and distance themselves from the Eluurians and go to the Sirisi? Or was it a ploy to appear open and reluctant about past actions?

"Some divisions are natural, sir, and some are our own creation. But the gods test us in ways we can't comprehend and as much as war destroys, we've always come out stronger and more resilient, cherishing life more completely."

Marshall Chetan turned to her, his head moving back in surprise. "The gods?"

Melicia frowned, inwardly wincing as she hadn't realized she'd mentioned them. The phrase of the gods testing humanity was a common saying. Her grandparents had said it often, usually after arguments and fights.

The man's tone could have been interpreted either as curiosity or anger. "Yes… the gods, the Lords of Kobol… I apologize for any offense-"

"No," he put up his free hand, "apologies from myself for my tone… it's just… we didn't expect… do many people on your planet believe in the Lords of Kobol?"

"Yes… many people, the vast majority." The spook felt a knot in her stomach. Frak.

"Oh… oh…" Marshall Chetan sounded genuinely disappointed, his body language mimicking his tone. "When we fled our old world to build a civilization here, we left the old ways of belief in the supernatural behind… forgive me, I do not mean to be crass, but many will consider beliefs in gods to be superstitious and I find it perplexing that such an advanced peoples could still believe in… metaphors."

Religion was a topic best left to the priests and this was no discussion to have at the moment. The potential for misunderstandings when discussing the Lords of Kobol was like trying to jump a chasm; you were going to fall. And Melicia had her fears. How would the galaxy react to the Colonies of Kobol worshipping the very gods the Goa'uld had imitated and perverted? She prayed for guidance and changed the subject.

"You and the emissary mentioned you fled to this world. Can you tell me more?"

The marshall bowed his head to acknowledge the leading statement. "Indeed. Three thousand, one hundred, and twenty-one years ago we fled, when the Goa'uld who had enslaved us was attacked, with great ships and we saw fear. How could a god or his soldiers be afraid?" He stressed the last word and sighed. "And why would gods need soldiers and space ships? It had taken centuries or us to realize it, and our Goa'uld overlord changed many times, becoming more and more brutal as our planet was conquered and re-conquered. Unfortunately we don't know who took us from the first world to the second."

"If they were gods, they wouldn't need ships and soldiers," Melicia tentatively agreed, "and we've fought the Goa'uld, in space." She took the opportunity to press the issue. Proconsul Asselo wanted them to convince the leaders an alliance or agreement with the Colonies was in their best interest and Upland saw her opening. "We have more than just the ship you've seen in orbit, marshall, many powerful ships. We may be at war with the Goa'uld… and wars are best fought with allies."

"Wars are best not fought at all, captain," he corrected. Melicia mentally rolled her eyes; a man like this wouldn't have ever been selected for rank in the Colonies. "We've been here for thousands of years without the Goa'uld knowing about us. Your arrival will spark fear."

"One of our allies knew of this planet's location." The marshall looked worried. "But we fought against the Goa'uld not too long ago, against Sokar, a very powerful enemy. And we won. This world doesn't have anything to fear from us… in fact, we have a lot in common, marshall. We've been cut off from the galaxy for too long."

"Defeating the Goa'uld is a feat, Captain Upland, a triumph worth celebrating at least."

"Thank you, sir… but with your technology and possession of the Great Ring, do you travel to other worlds? The emissary didn't really talk much about it."

The marshall snickered and sighed. "Never. We don't have the dialing device. In fact, it is within the capitol city of our Sirisi enemies…" He turned and shook his head and pre-empted her question of 'how' and 'why'. "The reason the Great Ring and dialing device are separated is because when we arrived on this planet, none of the leaders trusted the other to not use the Ring and inadvertently lead the Goa'uld to us. One group took the Ring, the other the dialing device. We've fought many wars over it in the past. The Isthmus War wasn't due to only economics, but because the Sirisi wanted the Great Ring. There has been public discussion of using the Ring to explore and bring back the technologies described in our history books for our benefit. And as computers advance we will soon not need the Sirisi or the dialing device. That worries them. Greatly." He hummed, concerned. "I will speak plainly in the spirit of cooperation and disclosure, captain. We saw the Sirisi and their allies amassing soldiers on the border and we struck first. The war wavered after our initial victories and we were pushed back but we counter attacked a year in and held the offensive until the Sirisi detonated a nuclear bomb on our army and killed fifty thousand soldiers. We were pushed back until we used a nuclear bomb on them and on their cities. They retaliated. We all signed a cease fire when we pledged to not activate the Great Ring for a minimum of fifty years. The fear of nuclear annihilation was too great to continue our war."

The captain was a little surprised at the speed of the revelation, both concerning the nuclear weapons and the reason a dialing device was missing from the gate. The nuclear issue wasn't all that concerning, not to her at least, and she had no doubt none of the military would really care. There were no hang-ups about pre-emptive war in the Colonies and she hardly objected.

She debated revealing the Sirisi missile satellite in orbit, but tucked that away for use later on. It could come in handy if these folks weren't so inclined to allow access to their gate, especially if they were afraid of war.

"I'm sure the proconsul and emissary will be able to work past that, marshall." She paused. "The Goa'uld are a dangerous threat and it will take people with strong resolve to fight them. I don't believe you should feel sorry for having to defend yourself."

The marshall leaned back and studied her a moment. He seemed more relaxed but still on edge. "And that brings me to another question; why are you here, exactly?" The words were spoken softly, but still had an edge to them. "You truly do not possess a Great Ring?"

"We don't have one." The marshall gave her a look and she shrugged. "We don't know why we don't. But we aren't native to our solar system. We fled Kobol, our home world, thousands of years ago after an ecological calamity."

"Interesting."

Melicia nodded, just to acknowledge the comment and continued staring out the window. The meal had been nice, talking with the marshall was engaging, but they needed to sit the frak down and hammer out some sort of agreement about using the Eluurian gate and she was damned well not going to take 'no' for an answer, not when a gate was so close!

"One more question, if you don't mind, sir?" She started, wanting to keep some semblance of a conversation going, both to pump the Eluurian general for information and to prevent some sort of uncomfortable silence falling between any of them. Upland waited for the little hand gesture to ask. "You said you were occupied by many Goa'uld. Which was the one you finally escaped from?"

"Ares."

…_Frak…_

* * *

The supposedly _relaxing_ post-dinner cocktail session wasn't. Captain Upland hadn't been the only one of the group to inquire about which Goa'uld the people of this planet had escaped from. Ironically, it had been the proconsul himself, the young, bright, accomplished diplomat of Libra, who'd let the name 'Ares' slip in casual conversation. He had been talking with their emissary about festivals, and coincidentally, going by ship time, it was Mars Day, or to the all the Colonies which weren't Tauron, Ares Day. It had been an innocent mistake, with the proconsul caught up trying to relate to the emissary; what better way than mentioning that the Colonies were _also_ celebrating an important holiday?

_That_ hadn't gone over well.

"You… are Goa'uld _worshippers!_"

Melicia just about dropped her glass when she heard that eye-popping, head-turning accusation.

_Frak._

"Emissary, please…" Henri Asselo had his hand, palm down, in a defensive and submissive position. He tried to keep calm. "We are not Goa'uld worshippers."

Despite the insulting accusation, Melicia went into damage control mode. She'd rushed over, Marshall Chetan on her heels, and was ready to jump into the fray. Cain stopped her, with a palm on the chest. Entering this 'conversation' which was on its way to rapidly becoming a shouting match would only expand the animosity and draw in all the Eluurians and their allies in the room.

The situation was spiraling out of control quickly. Guards which had been standing the perimeter halfway between boredom and comas were now excited, hands on the holster of their firearms, knowing that something had upset their commander and he only had to give the word.

Major Usher was there too, hand ready to grab his own pistol. The body armor the Colonials were wearing could take the bullets, but at this range, it'd hurt like fraking hell. And one man with one pistol against a dozen wasn't all that great of odds. There were also unarmed military officers around them, another half dozen, which would spring into action. The Eluurians had them dead to fraking rights if they wanted to hurt them.

Commander Martinili would be listening in via their surveillance pins and already be planning a rescue with Colonel Catus, but Melicia had doubts if a few hundred Marines would even be capable of doing anything in time.

"You have a celebration in honor of the very Goa'uld who enslaved my people and tortured our ancestors for generations! You are celebrating in his honor this very _day!_"

Colonel O'Neill pushed his way to Upland's side, his mouth hanging open at the exchange.

"God, you people know how to start something, don't cha?" He whispered to her. "What the hell happened?"

Melicia cringed as second, or technically third contact with a human/alien civilization went straight down the shitter. Don't pass the core, don't pass the scrimmage line. Frak. Just go and jump right into a star and vaporize yourself.

"I don't know," she half hissed, half whispered. "One second… the proconsul must have said something about the Lords of Kobol."

Marshall Chetan had grabbed her bicep and pulled her in close. While his grip was firm, it was gentle. "Why didn't you say something?"

She looked up at him, swallowing but kept her voice even and strong. "We didn't know about your past with Ares," she quickly responded, "we're not Goa'uld worshipers, marshall. The Goa'uld are imitators and scavengers." Now she was just repeating what Jackson had told her earlier. "They take from cultures and use their beliefs against them."

The marshall let go of her, looking away.

"If you allow me to explain, please-" the proconsul pleaded.

Emissary Nakan's stare was hard. "You better… not only do you worship gods, but-"

"We do not worship Goa'uld. The Goa'uld-"

"It makes sense now, proconsul… I wondered how such an advanced civilization could develop within this galaxy. We spent centuries under the whip of the slave masters and we listened as they boasted of their victories. We know they destroy anyone capable of being a threat to them. You worship them, you carry out their orders. This contact was too good to be true. How can I recommend any sort of alliance to my brother now after this deception?" He almost spat and his teeth were barred.

Colonel O'Neill stepped forward, hands up and palms out, stepping between the two. "Gentlemen, please." He gave each The Eye. "The Colonials rescued me and my team from one of Sokar's planet. A _Goa'uld_ planet. We've all been attacked by the Goa'uld for Pete's sake and this is one big misunderstanding. They don't worship Goa'uld and yeah, their religious beliefs might be a little wonky," he missed the open mouthed stares of disbelief from the four Colonials, "but come on. They came as friends. And I really, really want to get home." He was fuming. "There's a big war going on out there I'm missing. Sokar's taking on the System Lords. Earth's been fighting them and-"

"Earth?" Marshall Chetan repeated, stepping forward. "You're from Earth?"

O'Neill put down his hands. "Yeah, I'm from Earth. We would have gotten to that if _this_," he waved his arms around, "hadn't happened. This is a misunderstanding, a damned big one, and believe me I've seen some big misunderstanding really screw over people big time! Earth hates the Goa'uld, you hate the Goa'uld, and the Colonies hate the Goa'uld. All of us are… Goa'uld haters." He paused, giving himself a funny look. "So what's the problem if someone's religion is a bit off?"

Marshall Chetan nodded, stepping towards the emissary and placing a hand on his elbow. "Emissary, if they're from Earth, then they're from the ancestral planet. Tau'ri. Our historical books tell us we were taken from a planet named Earth, inhabited by a people called the Tau'ri many centuries before our escape to this world."

Nakan's eyes narrowed to slits and he turned to face the marshall. He cocked his head sideways at O'Neill. "How can we trust them? We can't… how do we know they are not manipulating us? There are many ways to learn of our history."

"Many of our people died passing on this history. Ares forbade it. But we persisted."

"No…" he stared at the Colonials. "Whatever it is you want… you will not have it, not now. We welcomed you. But how could we have been so foolish?" He spun when he heard a crackle.

Melicia had been watching, holding her breath, and wanting to just slam her face into the wall repeatedly until she knocked herself out. The first first contact on Colonial terms had gone horrible wrong and there'd be hell to pay when they got back to the Colonies. She should just resign her commission right now…

Major Usher had a small wireless device in his hand, roughly the size of half a deck of pyramid cards. He gave it his undivided attention, pressing the push-to-talk button. "Usher, go."

"_Sir, flash message from Argus: ATTENTION, Krypter, Krypter, Krypter, radiological detection, nuclear missile silos opening in grids zero-nine-two through zero-nine seven. Object Zero-One in condition red, repeat Object Zero-One in condition read."_

Captain Upland's eyes widened. She turned for the marshall, but he was out of reach. She had to warn him. Object Zero One was the Sirisi missile satellite. It's design was similar to ancient weapons platforms launched by the Colonies, and if the similarities were anything more than superficial, the missiles could be fired in mere minutes.

Emissary Nakan had heard the report. "Nuclear missiles?" He bellowed, his eyes landing accusingly on the Colonial delegation. "You're going to attack us!"

"No!" Captain Upland was right up to him, almost chest to chest. "No, emissary…" she mentally winced, prepared to reveal need-to-know technology. "_Argus_ is one of our most advanced battlestars. It has radiological detectors which allow us to detect nukes… and when silo bay doors open we can detect a spike in the radiological signatures! We know where _every_ nuke is on this planet. We know you have fifty low yield nuclear missiles sitting within thirty kilometers of the demarcation line with the Sirisi. We know you have a submarine with twenty nuclear warheads six hundred kilometers northeast of this city, in the eastern ocean."

She saw Marshall Chetan talking to the side, splitting his attention between her and another two men, all whispering and showing him something in a brown folder. They were furiously pointing and flipping the pages, Melicia saw they were photo reconnaissance packets.

"Why should we believe you? Guards, circle."

The guards stepped forward and encircled the Colonials, with Emissary Nakan at the perimeter. Asselo had unconsciously stepped back and away, to a position between Upland and Cain, with Usher shielding him with an outstretched forearm. O'Neill was to Cain's left. The playful and happy disposition, broadcast from his eyes, of the colonel was long gone and replaced with a stare of hardened steel, directed right towards Emissary Nakan.

Commander Cain answered. "Why would we attack you when we're here?" Her voice was calm. "If we wanted you dead, you'd be dead, and we'd be up there watching it happen. We _don't_, emissary, despite your completely _fraked up_ accusation. We came here to negotiate for a gate, not start a war with you." She made a knife-hand gesture. "Don't do anything you regret. This is still salvageable."

Melicia saw how composed and calm the commander was and couldn't help but be impressed. The eyes never lied, and hers showed the same conviction and emotion her voice and words did.

Marshall Chetan was at the perimeter of the circle. "We have confirmation, sir," he directed at the emissary. "One of our spies in the Garden Palace has jut confirmed it, sir. The Sirisi begun a mobilization thirty-two minutes ago and will have their missiles fueled within the hour. We must alert our forces."

"What are our options, marshall?"

The man shook his head. "Their missiles out range ours, sir, but we have more. And our bombers can fly higher than their interceptors. We won't be able to launch our missiles until theirs are in the air… all the northern cities will be destroyed."

The emissaries eyes went dark, his mouth open. Both hands were cupped and he buried his face in them, running his hands through his hair. "Thirty million people live in the northern cities."

"Captain," it was the proconsul, up beside her, Usher at his side. "Tell them about the missile satellite."

"Marshall," Captain Upland said. His head swiveled in her direction. "How long will it be before you are capable of launching your missiles?"

"Fifty-three minutes if they launch once fully fueled… three minutes before theirs hit. Our bombers will be in the air in less than ten minutes, but won't make it to the Alliance territory for hours. By then our cities will be destroyed."

Melicia rubbed her chin, her hand swiping at her mouth. "The Sirisi have a nuclear missile satellite in orbit. It has twelve missiles, estimated at eight hundred kilotons a piece. It can launch within twenty-five minutes if our estimates are accurate-"

Chetan suffered a momentary lapse in professionalism. "Those fucking bastards," the marshall swore. His fists balled. "If they target our silos they'll take out a significant number of our strike capability… our target our cities…"

Emissary Nakan was visibly shaken. "Unless they target our cities… if they target this city four million will die… they can wipe out three quarters of our population with their missiles."

O'Neill shook his head. "Then reach out to them, talk to them." He sounded like Daniel. "It's not too late." Melicia could tell he knew where this was heading. "Their attack is a misunderstanding, over our arrival, right? This will spiral out of control unless you stop it now. No one's fired missiles yet." He turned to the proconsul. "Asselo, you can contact them, explain what's happening, tell them you aren't playing favorites."

Commander Cain watched them coolly and slowly blinked her eyes. "We can save you." Asselo looked at her, ready to speak, but she held up a hand. "You have a choice. You've insulted us and accused us of planning an attack… accused us of worshiping Goa'uld. Your soldiers threaten us this very moment." She waved at the perimeter of guards. "We were prepared to negotiate for mere _access _to the gate, to give you advanced technologies and medicines and more. Not now. No.

"Now you have a choice, emissary, of two options you are responsible for; give us the gate and let us defend you… or we can sit here and die together… I believe in an afterlife, emissary, my soul will live on in Elysium… do you know where yours will go? _Argus_ will retaliate… but I'm not sure if they'll retaliate against your enemies or you for kidnapping us. Decide." She lowered her chin. "Now."

Asselo exchanged a look with Cain and he nodded his approval to her. The emissary looked towards Asselo.

"I agree with the commander, emissary… I regret it came to this," Asselo said.

Melicia looked first at Usher and then O'Neill. Helena Cain had stepped up and was dominating this abortion of a diplomatic negotiation, Henri Asselo, a fraking proconsul from the office of the fraking president having unconsciously ceded his authority to the woman. The captain was witnessing what she'd only read about in the commander's files and could see why Admiral Corman had groomed this woman to take command of a battlestar.

She was fearless and stood there, telling the brother of a king to basically frak himself.

Melicia shuddered…_gods fraking damnit…_

"You wont sit here and let yourselves be killed… your ship will save you, they'll intercept the missiles."

"No." Cain shook her head. "You took us hostage… we don't negotiate with hostage takers."

"The gate's been a part of our culture, our heritage… you're blackmailing us-"

The captain held her breath as she sensed Cain ready to speak.

Cain shrugged. "Then we die together."

* * *

AN: Thank you all for the previous reviews. They're much appreciated.


	15. Chapter 15

_Then we die together_…

_Gods… fraking… damn it!_

Dying was something Melicia Upland had no plans of doing, not now, not any time, and definitely not on some fraking two-bit asshole of a world a billion light years from the Colonies. And she was resolutely determined to not get incinerated in a nuclear fireball because fraking Helena Fraking CAIN! had to prove to the galaxy she had a bigger pair than her dear old uncle.

And like any good FID operative, she stifled what could have been and should have been a healthy dose of inner fear and stood beside her commander, closing ranks even if she wanted smacked her on the back of the head.

There was a time and a place to bluff, and bluffs were made when you had no intention of following through on them… that's what made them bluffs! So why the frak did Melicia have that nagging, almost nausea-inducing suspicion Helena Cain wasn't bluffing?

It made no sense. Not really, not when Melicia read through the files she'd tucked away on Cain in the deep recesses of a trained operative's mind; she was closer to a glory hound than a martyr, and glory hounds didn't get the glory by dying on primitive worlds. Yet why did Melicia feel her concerns being tugged closer and closer to the realization Cain wasn't bluffing when she _should_ have been? _Frak_!

Now there wasn't a damn thing she could do; Cain outranked her and she'd been taught, like the millions of others in the Fleet to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their commanding officers in the face of adversity, even death. '_Unity_!' had been the rallying cry of the Colonies to push back the Cylon menace and '_Unity!'_ had been institutionally engrained it surprised Melicia she was even thinking of standing by her commander rather than just _doing it_.

But gods, was this her fault? Was her career basically over? Melicia recalled the asinine stunts of past FID officers and the remarkably stupid stunts- later hailed as heroic and ballsy- of intelligence operatives from the pre-unified Colonies. Melicia snorted. _Maybe Cain does have the balls_, she thought as she gave her commander a dignified nod. _Unity_.

"You won't let yourselves die," the emissary repeated.

Cain hummed. "We all return to the soil, emissary. Everyone."

Next to Cain, Melicia's faith was temporarily broken as she mentally rolled her eyes at the Tauron fatalism.

"Emissary… Marshal," Melicia added, hoping that Chetan would intervene, "what happened, the accusations, they happened, fine. We can move beyond it. _Nothing_ had been done which can't be looked past by either side yet."

Again the images of nuclear fire swept through Captain Upland's chaotic thoughts. Yes, on her recommendation they'd made contact instead of getting one of the _other_ gates a dozen or so jumps away. _Oh, you can make havoc on a galactic scale_, Melicia taunted herself, paraphrasing Premie's words to her in the Raptor a few days back. _Thanks a lot Premie, ya asshole!_

"If you don't intercept the missiles they'll destroy the Great Ring," the emissary threatened.

"Commander, sir," Captain Upland's voice was strong, authoritative, and her eyes never wavered from the emissary. "Even if they kill us and the Ring is destroyed, _Argus_ will be able to complete its mission."

The emissary's lips flared in anger and as he was ready to speak, Cain abruptly and continually cut him off, barely pausing for breath, and only then for dramatic effect.

O'Neill held up a loosely balled fist with an index finger extended as a matter of point. "Uh, if a nuke hits-"

"That's right, captain, we can get another gate." The revelation to these people made Cain far more confident. "So if we die Commander Martinili will take _Argus_ and retrieve another gate in a nearby system… no more than a few days from here. So," she said that word with what seemed to Melicia all the arrogance every man, woman, and child in the Colonies could muster, "you have a choice, emissary. If you keep holding us _Argus_ will not intercept the missiles. Let us go and we can work together…" a ghost of a smile appeared. "We can work together as friends or… you can either tuck your cock in between your legs and cower and wait for your deaths or grab it and charge forward."

"How dare you… a woman speaking in such a-"

"What the frak does _that _have anything to do with this?" Cain glanced down to share an indignant look at the emissary's expense with Captain Upland. And truly, neither woman understood the comment. "Decide. Decide_ now_, emissary. We don't the time to sit here and bitch."

Melicia slowly cocked an eyebrow. Her dislike of Commander Cain was slowly becoming some sort of begrudging respect and maybe a little hint of admiration. The fraking woman didn't back down!

Emissary Nakan was breathing heavily, a drop of sweat daring to make its way from his temple, run treacherously behind his eye, and roll down his cheek, in front of his ear. In mere minutes his attitudes and hopes had changed and he saw the future of his nation smashed upon the rocks of history as enemy missiles were bearing down on his beloved home.

"No. We all understood war with the Alliance might come, now it's here. You're bluffing." The emissary almost sounded desparate and he did everything to keep from blinking, physically and metaphorically.

"Am I?" Cain folded her arms.

Colonel O'Neill was scowling, letting this play out as it would, but enough had been enough. "Christ Almighty! Give it a god damn rest!" He'd grown used to the Colonial's casual sexual references to feel comfortable using one. "If you two want to measure your dicks, go right ahead- later! There's a bunch of nuclear missiles coming our way and if they hit the gate they'll magnify the explosion! You people are aware of what happens when naquadah explodes, right?"

His scowl and his look was enough to even chink Cain's armor, and she leaned back, but he hated the smirk. She approved, but damnit, he didn't really want it or care for it.

Proconsul Asselo held up his hands. "Please, everyone-"

"I've taken a back seat to all this," O'Neill fiercely interrupted, pushing forward to stand between the Colonials and Eluurians, "and this is just _fraked up_." He gave the Colonials behind him a stony glare. "Neither of you have had anywhere near the experience with the snakes as we have and neither of you knows what's out there. Both of you've been isolated for thousands of years!" He threw up his hands then let them hit his thighs. "I mean… damn it! Instead of helping each other and that big ol' galaxy out there you," he jabbed a finger at Nakan, "want to go and sting them up over their religion. And you all want to sit back and let millions die in some grand dick waving contest!"

The colonel sighed. It was a content sigh, something that felt good and he couldn't remember when he'd been so livid. Not even with the Bedrosians or Eurondans or anyone. Save some idiots like the NID or Senator Robert God Damn Kinsey.

"Is it that bad, have we been that bad?" The marshal asked, shaking his head and talking quietly. He looked almost pleadingly to the emissary. "This was a mistake."

"Sir," Upland spoke, "their missiles… we need to coordinate, we need to decide if we're going to act. We have to do it soon."

Emissary Nakan took a step back and leaned against a table, using one arm to support himself. His free hand ran the length of the front of his plain crown. "Everything's been for the kingdom… we don't want the Goa'uld, but if you join you they'll come. They always come… our ancestors-"

"They may come, you're right," O'Neill confirmed, "and honestly they will. They came for us. Apophis came for us. But we defeated him. We've defeated Ra, Apophis, Seth, Mars, Hathor… got Nirti arrested…" he snickered, "and we almost got Sokar. This close…" he held up his index finger and thumb, separated by a hair's width. "

"What's your point?" Chetan demanded.

"The point is there's a lot of bad guys out there in the galaxy." He swept his hand up. "And those of us like… uh, us, need to stick together. We've been trying to get allies to fight the Goa'uld for years now and you gotta realize there are bigger things out there than just you."

"Is it too late?" Emissary Nakan asked.

"I've seen worse," the colonel explained, his tone then becoming a warning, "and I've seen people recover from worse misunderstandings. This doesn't have to be forgotten, it won't be, but it can be forgiven. _Trust_ me."

It was as if Commander Cain couldn't stand to be outdone. "Colonel O'Neill's correct," she said, maneuvering herself for the last word. She let a moment's silence linger. "We can salvage this. You can."

"What can you do?"

"_Argus_ can intercept the missiles." Cain replied.

"Truly?" the man asked, holding back the desperation.

"On my recommendation," Proconsul Asselo interjected, maneuvering himself forward. He looked Cain over his shoulder with a flinted frown. "Military intervention can be ordered with the recommendation of a senior envoy from our president." He held out a back hand at chest height. "On Kobol, our ancestors spilled blood with a knife to… rectify grievance." Asselo made a small slashing motion with his other hand about mid forearm. "And pressed backs of the cut forearm together… but we're far more civilized today. In the past we resolved insults with wars and bullets. Today…" An eyebrow rose and he lowered his hand. "Take my hand in friendship, emissary. It's offered once."

* * *

First Commander Jorun Caf lar Stok closed his eyes and gently coughed to clear his throat. The recycled air in the command center was brisk, cooled from the air purifiers. But the bodies and warm air from the computer consoles was quickly making the bunker stuffy. The hum of computers and buzz of soldiers in conversation made it seem almost routine, nothing more than a drill, except the light in the far right corner was red, not blue.

He took out an old time piece from his breast pocket, a beaten and scratched pocket watch made with a dulled bronze case with minute and hour hands made of ruvite metal, dark as obsidian. The metal chain for the watch had been taken from a dead Eluurian soldier over a century ago. It had been handed down to the men in the Caf family, starting from his great-great grandfather and presented to him during the Anniversary Celebration thirty-one years ago by his father. First Commander lar Stok concentrated and he could hear the tick of the second hands above the din and murmur of excited conversations, only just. Under the clock face the part of the hashes were obscured by blood, and the glass face cracked in three.

This watch was stained in the blood of his grandfather, who'd been killed wearing it commanding a battalion of soldiers fighting the cursed enemy.

And the watch had been stolen, sold, pawned. Chaf's father had spent years tracking it down, finally finding it in the desolate, lonely, and lawless White Lands. His father had said the man hadn't wanted to sell it back. How his father had retrieved it, a young Jorun had never asked, his imagination satisfying his curiosity.

As he heard it tick he smiled. It was impish, sly, and as he opened his dark blue eyes, set in ragged and shallow sockets in a thin, gaunt face, that smile faded as his eyes set their gaze on the massive screen taking up an entire wall of the command bunker. He had to swallow as reality began to extend its stranglehold and wrap its titan fingers around his tiny throat.

The red lines signifying the paths of nuclear missiles, and the green lines of nuclear bombers, grew longer and longer every second. As the screen refreshed less and less of the dots remained on the dotted lines between missile and bomber and target.

A new and total type of war was about to be unleashed on the world of Elutjah. A destructive new future lay ahead for them all. Jorun Chaf could only appeal to the memory of his ancestors that he would live to see the rise of a new sun.

"Eighteen minutes until detonation," a man sitting at a console on the far right of the room yelled. His gray and brown uniform matched the mood of the bunker perfectly. A half dozen or so looked at the reporting man and then resumed their own work, concentrating on relaying orders, holding onto the secure threads of their own professional in the wake of an unknown and dark future.

Heavy footsteps approached and then stopped. Chaf could see a tall and broad chested man standing on his right, barely within his peripheral view.

"If we're going to do it… we should do it now, while... they're distracted." The man sounded reluctant and his gravelly voice was tired, distracted. He held a hand over his heart.

First Commander Chaf turned to face his opposite as he clicked the time piece shut, putting it gingerly back in his pocket and letting his hands fall to his side. "Patience, Group Commander." He slapped his old friend on the back. "The Kobolians wouldn't even know our satellite is any different than the others; its disguise as a com satellite fooled the Eluurians for years."

The group commander coughed. "What if they come back in greater numbers?"

The first commander's nostrils flared. "We can't let indecisiveness cut at our will and need to act, Klion. If we don't act the Eluurians will grow in power exponentially and slowly destroy us; our economy, our alliance, our culture. They'll bring their…" he almost gagged, "corn tah bread and their music and their ridiculously bright clothes…"

"I still think firing the satellite-"

"The Kobolians will make them more powerful than we can imagine… we could never attack again. They'll be so powerful they can destroy our culture… bribe away our allies… three thousand years of grievances can't be forgiven, or forgotten. If we don't act, we die." His eyes had unfocused as he talked and he felt his chest warm, a light sweat under his arms as he waited the precious few second until…

"Seventeen minutes until detonation!"

The first commander's shoulders drooped and his back straightened to an unnaturally rigid position. "Patience…" he spoke in a stifled voice, almost so low he could barely hear his own word. "The civilians are already evacuating the cities, going to the bunkers. We'll survive as a nation."

The group commander and Chaf's long-time friend folded his arms. He pushed the sleeve of his uniform up, just a little, and studied the second hand of his watch for a moment. "Surely there is some other way. We could… we could detonate the missiles, direct them into the oceans… there's time."

Chaf opened his mouth, only just, and ran his tongue along the back of his teeth. He spoke slowly. "No… even if their transports left hastily… we have to show the Kobolians that this is not their world." He turned, his projected confidence meant to convince his boyhood friend. "If we acquiesce then they will come back stronger. They wouldn't come to our world unless they wanted the Great Ring, or forbid, our own planet. Will they colonize us? Flood our markets? Or provide weapons of unimaginable power to the Eluurians for them to destroy us?" First Commander Chaf's bushy eyebrows furled together and he shrugged.

"You don't know they will."

"But when they do, when _know_ then it will be too late, Klion." Chaf strode forward and put a hand on the shoulder of a young officer. The man pushed back the head set covering his left ear. "Missile operator, reorient the satellite, aim it at the Kobolian warship."

"X-Point reach, repeat, X-point reached: fifteen minutes until detonation!"

A minute passed.

"Fourteen minutes until detonation!"

Another minute…

"Thirteen minutes until detonation!"

The red lines grew longer and longer, the distance to their targets shorter and shorter. They would soon be over the Isthmus. Dozens of missiles with hundreds of kilotons of nuclear power would soon strike the northern cities of Eluuria and their allies. Tens of millions would die, ports would be washed away in nuclear fire, train yard incinerated, airports wrecked, and nations destroyed as the pendulum swung toward total war.

"Chaf… I must attend to my duties… Eluurian bombers are approaching our borders."

"The memory of ancestors and the march of history go with you, Klion." First Commander Chaf squeezed the man's shoulder and shook his hand. "Have confidence." Klion slowly nodded, his eyes closing for but a moment, his face angled away.

"Nine minutes until detonation!"

"Eight minutes until detonation!"

The screen crackled, the map and red lines of the nuclear missiles disappearing, the green, jagged lines of the continents blurred. Electronic snow descended over the monitor.

The snow fizzled and condensed until the screen around it was black, all except for two glowing, white and black boxed words: _Frak You_.

The men manning the dozens of consoles all stood, some taking off their headsets, some staring at the screen, and a few wide-eyed and worried, looked back to their first commander. He had no answer, he felt nothing. But he knew what was about to happen, tried to ignore it. He stepped forward- knowing he could do nothing- one foot, the left then the right. His soles were hit the floor like a stick hitting a ca drum. Left, _boom_, right, _boom_. The sound was heavy in the quiet command center.

He scowled as he stepped, a rumble in his throat as he began to form words, to bark at his men to continue- knowing it was futile, but his mind working too quickly to understand, admit to this futility.

And before that rumble in his throat formed words his world ended. A metal rod slammed into the command bunker. It's precision unquestioned, its destructive force assured. In an instant he and a hundred others were vaporized and buried under thousands of tons of rock. The bunker was his tomb. This was one of dozens, hundreds of strikes which occurred within minutes across the Sirisi Alliance.

* * *

Captain Upland smoothed her BDU blouse, squared her shoulders and prepared to knock on Marshal Chetan's door. A hand on her shoulder, a light squeeze stopped her.

"You sure you don't want me to come in with?" Major Usher asked, frowning at the door as he rested his hands on his PAR-56B battle rifle. He was wearing CMF standard issue body armor with an urban camouflage overlay. Five other Marines were behind him a few steps with their backs towards himself and Upland, watching for trouble. "They almost had us shot."

Melicia tilted her head. "I don't think 'shot' is quite accurate, sir." She looked back at the plain door. "Besides, if it wasn't for him… I trust him, major, and I think he'll come over to our side… we're gonna need people like him in the future."

The major raised an eyebrow. "We won a war for him. He _better_ not cause any trouble. That's why I should go in there with you."

She nodded. "I can't stop you, sir, but I'm asking you not to." Melicia bit the inside of her lower lip. "In fact…" she undid the straps securing her armored vest over her duty uniform and set it by the door and unclipped her pistol belt and hostler. Usher rolled his eyes. "If we're gonna be allies we need to start trusting at some point."

"Iddy officers aren't supposed to be so idealistic, captain." The slang for FID got him a hard look. "Alright, but we'll be outside. I don't trust 'em, not after what they did… but we have our orders."

"Indeed we do, major."

The young captain turned and knocked on the door. She gave it three seconds before twisting the handle and pushing, the door more heavy than it appeared. After stepping in and closing the door she paused, just beyond the threshold.

The room was dark and stuffy, forcing a feeling of claustrophobia to momentarily grab the captain. She paused at the threshold; the room was tiny compared to the lavish offices of flag officers in the Colonies and relatively unadorned, with only a few plaques and picture frames, and the crest of Eluuria on the wall behind the desk. Bland gray file cabinets lined the left wall.

There was a faint smell of some sort of incense, similar to what she'd smelled earlier in the underground command bunkers and which purpose it served she was still unaware.

The door automatically shut behind her, the sound of the latch clicking echoed within the small room. At the end, the marshal sat in his duty uniform staring out the window, his eyes as cold as an Aquarion tundra and his face as hard as battle plate. His combination cover rested on his knee. Light from the moon was the only illumination, lighting an old and lined face and casting a dreadful and eerie shadow on the far wall. The city was dark, on a mandatory blackout for fear of Sirisi bombers. _Not that we would let them attack_, Upland thought.

"Marshal," the captain said quietly, testing the moody, brooding waters. She saw a slow blink and then he turned, staring blankly at her. "May I?" She gestured.

Vaniket Chetan vo Herh looked away. The moonlight sparkled against his rank insignias, two brilliant golden ovals interlaced with three blue bars and bisected by a single crimson red bar.

"Can I stop you?" He said after a slight hesitation.

The captain ignored his fatalistic apathy and took two steps forward then stopped. Her attention centered on a dulled black hold-out revolver which had been hiding behind a small clock and whose barrel was pointing menacingly at her as it lay on the desk. Her jaw tightened. The bullet-resistant fibers in her clothes might stop the bullet, maybe, but she had no intention of letting the marshal shoot her or testing that maybe.

"Not for you," the marshal informed her, his voice a quiet hush. He gestured at the gun. "And besides, how many of your Marines are outside my door? Suicide was once used by our leaders if they failed. It was seen as the only honorable…" a corner of his lip ticked up, "…exit." He sighed.

"Have you failed?"

She looked at him with a hint of curiosity.

"Eluuria is hailing all of you as heroes. You stopped every nuclear missile… our forces have taken the initiative… they say the war'll be over within half a year." Chetan buried his face in his hands and ran them down, pulling at the skin and then grasped his fingers under his chin, almost like he was praying. "My people love you. Your actions… _heroic_. That's how the king described them." His lips moved, with no sound. The word was "_Heroic_," as if he was trying to believe it.

Melicia cocked her head. "Then how have you failed?"

The woman moved forward to stand a meter from the marshal, by the window. She watched the city, watched the military vehicles disgorge soldiers and set up sand bag barricades at intersections and around buildings. A missile battery, a vigilant guardian of the city, was positioned across the street with four sentries guarding it and a man next to it, barking orders and pointing. Half a dozen men rushed off from a truck, carrying cables and boxes of some sort to a command tent.

At every corner a tank or APC. Soldiers marched quietly in the streets. On the rooftops were more of the vigilant missile guardians.

High in the night sky she could see the dull glow of yellow double-engines, but only just. They were the fight patrols of the Eluurians, to protect against bombers.

And as she watched she kept a thoughtful and well-tuned ear on the sounds and rustlings within the room. She could hear the marshal's shallow breaths. Melicia may not have had a pistol or a knife but she had her hands, her feet, and her teeth. She had her senses and her reflexes. Her back may have been to the marshal but she could move fast.

Her faith in the marshal had wavered. Suicide was a weakness. Many in the Colonies saw it as a sin.

"How did I fail?" His tone was indignant. "Have you seen the news?"

She had and she nodded. She had seen the people rejoicing in the street when the Raptors from _Argus_ had landed in a precise diamond formation in the palace courtyard, surrounded by honor guards and jubilant Eluurians. The people had celebrated and cheered her and her compatriots as they formed up and walked the steps of the Eluurian palace, to great the king.

They were the saviors of Eluuria, the knights who came from the stars. In a society which believed in no god or deity, which had no tradition of religion or worship, the Colonial's arrival was being proclaimed as a 'coming'.

"Your kingdom is safe, marshal. The kingdom you fought for, the kingdom your son died for." She turned and pumped a fist. Her tight plait ponytail bounced on her shoulder. "You and your allies are on the offensive." She took a comp sheet from her pocket, unfolded it, and activated it. "I bought you this." She set it down on the table. "It's proof we did what we promised."

"Already?"

She nodded. "We destroyed the Alliance navy this morning and their air force. Their other command bunkers were neutralized last night by kinetic penetrators. Their satellites have been taken off-line."

He closed his eyes and drummed his right fingers on his chair's arm rest and then tossed his cover towards the desk. Upland watched as the tapping stopped and his hand shook nervously.

"This is… you don't understand," he said, eyes still closed. "I don't know if you could… we don't know anything about you. We don't know your desires, fears… ideologies."

"In time you will. We're allies now."

He made a throaty groan.

"No." His soft laugh was both dark and condescending. "We're a client. The emissary may have told the people we're allies, but we're not. How could we be allies… equals? There's the truth and then perceptions. We've nothing which can threaten your… _battlestar _so how long can either of us pretend? Your battlestar in an untouchable storm over our planet… you neutralized nearly a third of this planet's military power within seventy-two hours!"

"Your enemies-"

"Were traded for yours." Chetan crossed his arms, his index finger tapping aimlessly over his elbow.

Melicia said nothing, instead deciding to listen to the slow tick of the second hand from the marshal's desk clock. The sound was soothing and it slowly faded as her thoughts drifted from this planet and a feeling of smallness began to creep closer and closer, threatening to distract her and reduce her to this almost contagious hopelessness the Marshal Chetan was projecting.

"We destroyed an enemy for you under the mere pretext they 'attacked us' by firing their missiles! We could have just destroyed the nuclear missiles, marshal, and been done with it. But we _protected you_ and we wiped out hundreds of thousands in their military for your kingdom… this indignation over our help… you'd be dead if you-"

She caught herself and let a slow breath escape her lips. Turning, she buried her face in one hand, using the other to support her elbow.

"I apologize for that, marshal." She looked back up and out to the streets and cleared her throat and then over her shoulder. The marshal's grim face had turned away from the self-loathing he'd been in danger of being consumed… would he…?

"No… you're right."

She smiled to herself, mentally, and kept a stern but compassionate face as she stepped in front of the marshall, between him and the window, bringing a chair. They needed him with them. Sitting, she was eye level and not above utilizing certain physical characteristics to _nudge_ someone to her point of view. Melicia was quiet and reserved, her tone contemplative, almost sounding lonely.

"Maybe I won't understand, maybe… we're different, but we can either move forward or regret…" she stopped. "You're alive and millions who would've perished are alive. We killed your enemies without destroying their cities… there aren't bodies littering the ground… and that's a victory in its own… civilians didn't have to die. Whether you want to see our arrival as destiny or a curse… the gods guide us, the Fates set us on a path, but it's _how_ we travel that path which makes our lives our own.

"We didn't know about the Goa'uld, marshal, and we walked right into it." Melicia felt conflicted, her FID training tugging her one way and her decency as a human being the other. She _wanted_ to tell the marshal how fraking scared FID was and how alarmed the Colonial government was. The latitude granted FID to deal with this threat was almost frightening. "We stayed hidden for thousands of years, too. We found out we're in a region of space, the Traverse, and the Goa'uld don't come here. But how much longer, marshal, how much longer could that go on?" She looked away, giving him that moment to consider her words without any more pressure. _Argus_ was enough on his mind. He was staring right back. "One day you would've stumbled on the Goa'uld or they'd stumble on you. Right now we're here, offering you our help. We… we treat our allies well." She laid a hand on his knee, looking at him with ample eyes, but careful not to insult his professionalism. "Trust me."

"You don't know that, you can't." He argued, crossing his legs, forcing her to withdraw her hand. His arms were folded defensively. He had a small scowl.

"No, I can't. But there's a war going on in the galaxy and no matter who wins, we'll lose." She wasn't above cliché if it was needed. "We'll lose. Because the Goa'uld will be more powerful than ever and old superstitions won't protect any of us… their arrogance will overcome their fear." She could see the tempest which would consume the galaxy. "If not the Goa'uld then the Cylons… and they'd not even attempt to enslave you. And gods know who else out there. Hiding only works 'till someone finds you. Then you're fraked because you're not prepared."

His following chuckle was dark. "Here I am, being lectured by a young pup of an officer, what… barely thirty? How much war have you seen?"

"Do you want to know a truth, marshal?"

"What truth?"

"The truth is that I have a perspective you're, with respect, lacking. I haven't fought in a war but I've fought the Goa'uld." She shrugged, grunting thoughtfully. "Not as much as O'Neill, obviously… well, and the scars from the Cylon War are still there on our planets. And we're not cowering away from our new enemy. You take what the Fates give you… and then… character, it's character… either sit here and try to close the… or, or you join with us and make this work, make us both stronger."

Chetan seemed to waver, his breathing becoming fast and shallower as he sat and stared at the dark city before his eyes, its majestic beauty still grand, even in darkness. His eyes fluttered up, towards the top of the floor-to-ceiling windows, towards the moon. He swore he saw the white pin prick of _Argus_ in its low orbit moving across the night sky.

"The king granted you access… you'll have access to the Great Ring tomorrow… and then what?"

"That's up to you." Melicia looked away. "In the brief time I've known you you seemed to be the rock on which the emissary and your government leaned."

"Don't." The old war hero, the man weary of this game held up a hand to stop her. "If you want our trust you need to show us we can trust you."

Upland looked down, closed her eyes and then turned her attention to the activity outside. "Trust runs both ways, marshal, and we came in good faith." She didn't need to tell the marshal the complete truth. "How can we be lectured on trust after what your emissary did?"

Chetan shook his head slowly. "No." His voice was soft, defeated. "What will you do now with our Great Ring?"

"It's not just the gate we'll use. The Goa'uld are a galactic superpower and no one is powerful enough to take them on alone. We'll bring battlestars and industry to the fight, the Earthers experience and cunning, and what you bring… that's up to you, marshal. When I get back to the Colonies I intend to make it very clear what dangers we're facing… and if you're willing… available, you're more than welcome to come with us back to see who we are, and tell our Quorum and president what the Goa'uld did to your ancestors."

"And then…"

Melicia wasn't positive what the Quorum would do, or the president, or the planets. There were so many variables, so many questions, and the truth she could reluctantly admit was she had no idea just how big the threat was or how to effectively take it on. It was _galactic_ in scale. Unbelievable and unimaginable six months ago. Twelve years of war had been fought in a tiny region of space, not even a speck compared to the galaxy. How many years, decades… frak, centuries would the Colonies be fighting the Goa'uld? Would this threat by like the Cylons or worse?

FID officers were taught to use their fear, but she felt that black shroud grow and twist away whenever she tried to grab and hold it down. This fear was illusive; how would the Colonies react when they found out… would the president even disclose the aliens?

When they'd left Amorak and Baltar were still only scratching the surface on shields and weapons. Two battlestars… three attack stars to take down two _Ha'tak_ attack ships, one sabotaged… the public would be scared. _She_ was scared. It could be a Cylon War on a galactic scale… the death, the destruction, the suffering. And it could be the Colonies which could upset that delicate balance Jackson and Nizsim had talked so much about.

But there was only one answer for the marshall, one answer for the Colonies:

"We take the fight to them and we fight 'till we win."


	16. Chapter 16

"Holy shiiit, get down!" Colonel Albert Reynolds yelled as a death glider swooped down and skimmed the trees. He fell to a knee, wincing as his knee slid off a rock and an unnatural angle. He felt the heat and blast wave of the heavy plasma bolts from the glider, its shots going wide, to the right, and sending chunks of tree trunks flying through the air and showering him. Pieces of dirt plinked off his goggles.

The shots went wide deliberately. SG3 was sticking close to the hoversled they were protecting and no Jaffa was quite _that_ suicidal.

Reynolds hit the deck as a wave of Jaffa staff blasts flew overhead, the death glider having enhanced the courage, or perhaps stupidity, of the Jaffa. Some fell beside him and what seemed like minutes, with only a second passing by, Reynolds chuckled at the burned, smoking carcass of some sort of raccoon-dog-something hybrid, which might have looked a bit more like a monkey or… something. He knew he shouldn't be smiling, but if some monkey-dog-raccoon thing was the only casualty… and a quick glance around him confirmed it, he'd take it. Gladly.

The death glider roared away, flew high, seemed to stop in mid-air, turned and then came in for another pass. Reynolds and the rest of SG3 scrambled under the canopy of the trees, hoping, praying, doing anything that could throw off the Jaffa's aim, notably by staying close to the hoversled, but which bunched them up for the Jaffa on the ground. A double line of plasma bolts tore through the trees, burning leaves and flash igniting underbrush. The heat of the explosions washed over the Marines and dirt, pebbles, and bark rained on their backs. Reynolds, in the rear, was thankful when the glider passed in front of his men.

No one was dead… and Reynolds could just barely see the sun's sparkle glimmering on the glider as it charged through the sky, ready to make another pass. The damn thing wasn't letting up. It trailed smoke and was clearly damaged, but the god damned Jaffa on board wasn't going to back down until all his Marines were pulped.

He turned his back for a moment to get to some better cover as Lieutenants Johnson and Addison and Staff Sergeant Baker and Gunnery Sergeant Bellman fired back on the Jaffa, Baker with an M249 SAW. Baker fired a forty millimeter grenade at a Jaffa of the house guard of Kali, the Brahma Guard, killing one of the armored and robed figures and driving back the second, but leaving four more anchoring the Jaffa line at the left flank.

Reynolds frowned, gritting his teeth as he fired, tried to kill the second Brahma Guardsman. Their dark armor was stronger than the Jaffa around them. Sometimes they had a sort of shield around them which thankfully depleted after a few hits.

The Guardsman fell to a knee. Reynolds had hit him in the thigh, but the bullet hadn't penetrated the material. With Jaffa physiology chances are the bruise wouldn't even last that long.

The colonel signaled for Johnson to fire, distract the Brahma, and give himself a moment… he sighted the Brahma carefully, aiming right for its glowing blue eye socket and slowly he squeezed, slowly… and _crack_, the eye socket shattered inward and went dark. The Guardsman seemed frozen in time. Its staff weapons fell. It fell down to both knees and then slumped to its right.

"God damnit," he cursed as a third Guardsman appeared with six or seven additional Jaffa from a thick growth of trees and shrubbery behind the main Jaffa lines.

He signaled over his radio for support and continued firing at the other Jaffa. A good fifteen to twenty were following either behind or paced with the five remaining Brahma Guard.

Twenty Jaffa shouldn't have been an issue, not for a reinforced and expanded SG3, now comprising three four-man fire teams plus Reynolds. Throw in the Brahma Guards and a death glider for air support and it was damn tough and since the mission had called for a quick in and out and relied on a _tel'tak_ for transport, thirteen men and a Tok'ra pilot were about all the shuttle's life support could handle.

And it wasn't like these were the _only_ twenty-some odd following them. The running gun battle had already spaced over three quarters of a klick and a good dozen to twenty Jaffa bodies lay between SG3's objective and their current location.

_No casualties… fuck, let's keep it that way_, Reynolds hoped, narrowing his eyes and he squeezed the trigger but missing a Jaffa's head by a good two inches.

Reynolds sighted Sergeant Moran propping up his M249 bipod on a fallen tree, smoldering from staff blasts, and fired with as much precision as a light machine gun could, into the ranks of the Jaffa. One went down immediately, three fell back, and a Brahma fell to a knee as a bullet penetrated through its shin armor.

Lt. Johnson may have gotten the kill shot; Reynolds wasn't sure and didn't care, not right now because the only thing that mattered was making those living Jaffa dead. If the bastards wanted to die for their egomaniac 'goddess' then he was okay with that.

Reynolds was ready to move when his hands went limp, his rifle feel, and he was knocked off his feet. He gasped for air and felt like fucking Mike Tyson had just sucker punched him right in the solar plexus.

His fingers felt numb and he continued sucking for air. He could smell his vest melting and his arms shaking. His throat and chin were seared from the heat, red from burns.

His eyes snapped to as pain rushed through his body. It felt like being tackled by a three hundred pound lineman and getting kicked in the nuts, all rolled into one.

A pair of elbow pads had saved his elbows from second degree burns from the heat.

"Colonel!" Lt. Johnson shouted and fired as he quickly and cautiously made his way over. He dropped a Jaffa then checked on his CO. "Corpsman!"

The corpsman was on his way over, the colonel- staff blasts exploded around the two and Johnson pulled Reynolds behind a tree, the colonel grabbing his rifle.

Johnson swallowed… waited… waited… there was a brief second's respite, a lull in the Jaffa's fire. In one fluid motion he cautiously scanned the area behind him, picked his target, and fired his M4, the rifle bucking against his shoulder as a Jaffa foolishly raced from cover, almost followed by one of his compatriots. One shot hit the enemy in the leg, center thigh, sending him to a knee and forcing him to drop his staff weapon. The Jaffa went for his zat. A second shot smashed into his gut, with a third and fourth from someone else's rifle finishing the job, hitting the young Jaffa center mass. Sparks erupted from the Jaffa's plate armor and his muscles went into a quick spasm as his fingers uncurled from the zat and he fell on his side onto the ground, blood dripping from parted lips.

A second Jaffa stuttered and stepped back as Lt. Johnson opened fire with his rifle, missing, but sending the Jaffa back for cover and forcing him to drop his staff weapon.

The Jaffa hesitated, trying for his weapon. Col. Reynolds propped himself up to a sitting position and shouldered his rifle, not really aiming, and fired, the bullet nicked the Jaffa's armor right at the throat, ricocheted up, and cored through the man's mouth and brain, blasting through skull the force forced the Jaffa's head to snap back as bits of brain matter and skull exited explosively through the hole.

The Navy corpsman, PO2 Mike Crane rushed up and fell to his knees, skidding on the ground. The other Marines were covering, with one fireteam focused on protecting the hover sled and the 'valuable fucking cargo'- Lt. Johnson's words- from enemy fire and re-capture.

"Back, back," Crane soundly ordered Johnson and Moran who were too close. "Sir…" Crane saw the colonel breathing and reached into his bag-

"I'm…" Reynolds coughed and grabbed Crane's shoulder, squeezing, "I'm alright, doc." He lifted his head and patted his stomach and knocked on a charred piece of something sounding like plastic. His throat and chin burned, but the pain was manageable. "Fuck, first time getting shot." He grinned sourly, wincing again as he tried to turn his head, the burned skin resisting.

Johnson whistled. "Those fucking Orban wiz kids saved your ass, sir," and winked at the colonel. He gave him a quicjk

Crane was applying some anti-burn ointment, keeping the colonel down, and checking his ribs. The colonel winced. "You've got cracked ribs and you're gonna feel like shit for a few days, sir." The doc ducked as a staff blast tore into a tree, shearing a few small branches onto the two of them. He held his body over Reynolds' face to shield him. "You alright, sir?"

The colonel nodded and tugged at the armor. Crane handed him something, some purple stripped tablets the Orbanians had given them. He swallowed them down, his mouth dry. 'Space Advil' was what the people at the SGC were calling it.

There was an explosion, far in the distance, and high above, in the sky, it rained beautiful gray metal, and a fireball and black smoke hug there, just for a second for those fighting below to see… and the Jaffa stopped firing, just for a second, and Reynolds couldn't hear the agonizing whine of the death glider's engines anymore.

"Did the fucking Tok'ra just use a stinger?" Johnson asked, bewildered. "Holy fuck."

Johnson spotted a small group of Jaffa advancing to flank them, sighted them, and fired his M203. The forty millimeter grenade exploded at the rear Jaffa's feet, sending him flying- minus a leg- into the backs of the two in front. Reynolds, sitting up, fired and popped out his depleted magazine and slapped in another, sweeping his rifle and firing at yet another Jaffa, this time hitting a one of those damn trees which seemed to be everywhere.

With help from Crane Reynolds stood. He knew they had to move because the facility they'd attack wasn't going to be there too much longer and second, Kali may well have had ships in system. The Goa'uld were getting tired of fighting and losing to the SGC, even if was 'only' small-unit ground actions, SG3 had become notorious in lieu of SG1's absence, something Reynolds and his men would have traded without question for those four and SG8 back.

In the past few months they'd blown a naquadah refinery for Cronus, hijacked a freighter for Sokar with enough trinium for half a dozen _Ha'tak_ mother ships, blew apart another weapon facility, and incited three rebellions on worlds belonging to Yu and olokun. They'd also been guests of honor at a welcoming ceremony on an advanced planet eager to make the SGC allies.

Right now the SGC SOP was to spread havoc far and wide and gladly, boldly, and without reservations fuck up anything and everything pertaining to the Goa'uld.

Reynolds checked his receiver and felt a moment's respite as those little red numbers decreased down to zero. Two hundred meters, halt and fire at the Jaffa and kill a few… one hundred meters and kill some more Jaffa and then finally they'd reached their extraction point after nearly a twenty minute ground battle with the Jaffa and running low on ammunition, the team let out an unconscious sigh of relief as they stepped into a small clearing.

Suddenly, the interior of a _tel'tak_ appeared out of nowhere. "Get in," the Tok'ra pilot and operative demanded, waving them in. There was an expended stinger launcher over near the bushes.

"Thanks for covering our ass, Martouf," Reynolds said, clapping the Tok'ra on the back as he held an extended zat, and his eyes scanned the trees.

The team moved in, pushing the hover sled and its precious cargo in first. Martouf closed the hatch when Reynolds, last in, yelled for him to take off.

Staff blasts hit the hull, searing it with heat bleed through from the shields. It sounded like someone was outside pounding on the hull with hammers.

Reynolds, in the cockpit pulled out a detonator and smashed the red button. The tree line exploded. Jaffa were sent flying. He'd left a little present, the last of their two remote detonated claymores.

"You were successful." Martouf stated, careening his neck and rising slightly out of his seat to get a look into the cargo hold. "How much?"

The Marine colonel cracked a wicked grin, cheek to cheek. "Twenty-five."

Martouf raised both eyebrows. "To borrow an Earth phrase… holy shit."

Reynolds just shrugged and looked over the Tok'ra's shoulder, noting the altitude and distance from the site. Very nonchalant he took out a second detonator from under his vest. This one was a little larger, with a good sized transmitter rod on the side.

The clouds turned to a field of stars. "No… this is a holy shit moment, Martouf." He turned a safety switch and pressed a button. "Wanna flip us around? Marines, front and center," he called back over his shoulder.

Another eyebrow was raised and Martouf complied. The _tel'tak_ swung about on a dime, cockpit towards the planet.

SG3 had a treat, a present.

A few seconds later the six kiloton nuke within the facility detonated. A colossal mushroom cloud enveloped the entire forest, visible from space. Over a hundred and fifty square kilometers were incinerated in the blast as the nuclear bomb reacted with the naquadah.

Every living organism from the simple beetles and ticks of the forest to the wolf-like predators which had roamed hunting for prey to the Jaffa and Goa'uld were incinerated in nuclear fire, turned to dust, their one final duty to fall back to the earth as ash.

* * *

"Is the novel boring you, colonel?" Martouf kept his eyes steady and forward. The Tok'ra scratched at the eye piece feeding him telemetry on the cargo shuttle.

"What?"Colonel Reynolds, feet up on the console and slouched in the co-pilot's chair sat up and shook his head. "No… it's just I, uh, it's hard to keep track, Martouf. It's like Tolstoy wrote it." He tensed. He'd yawned. And it'd be a long, drawn out, very loud yawn.

"I am not familiar with 'Tolstoy'," he retorted, turning his head just a little bit and closing one eye. He gave the colonel a curious look. "But you tone and inflection implies boredom." He moved a hand from the steering console and pressed some button with Goa'uld script. "I apologize. I thought it would interest you based on our previous conversation."

"Tolstoy was a Russian author and uh, wordy, with a lot of characters sort of, I don't know," he waved his left hand in a circle, "angsting a lot." He shrugged. "I mean, this book, the main character Reossufa worries about whether or not his aunt suffers this epidemic infection for forty-two pages… I mean no dialogue or anything, just his thoughts and then he concocts some complicated plan to prove it or not. And his plan backfires and has him exiled from the family and it turns out the infection was just some plot device to get him to move west where the main story actually begins… after almost two hundred pages!" He sighed. "I mean, I can tell it's… its literature. I'm more for action-"

"_Soldier of Fortune_? _Playboy?_"

Reynolds snickered. "No." He did a double take. "Where did you learn about _Playboy?"_

"It was during my trip to Washington with Selmak three months ago to brief you Joint Committee on Emerging Threats. Your Yahoo! search engine service directed me to material of a pornographic nature."

"Ah huh…" Reynolds's tone was questionable on whether or not he believed the Tok'ra.

Martouf frowned. "On why you didn't like the novel, you meant physical action." Reynolds tilted his head. "That novel's purpose is to force the reader to acknowledge the price of actions and accept responsibility while understanding his or her own place in the universe. It was quite popular on my home world."

"I'm more into thrillers, science fiction, stuff like that."

"What do you mean by science fiction?"

"Space ships and aliens and adventures, stuff that moves a bit faster. No offense. But this one's kept me occupied for the last four days." A single shoulder rose into a shrug. "So that's good, right?"

"I watched one of your television shows the last time I was on Earth, colonel." Renyolds' eyebrows perked up. "Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was an interesting point of view on what some of your philosophers call the human condition, if I am not mistaken, and what humanity- Earth humanity- could be capable of. Earth could be a far more powerful force if it were unified and if you stopped fighting each other."

Reynolds held his tongue for a moment. It was more than a bit callous, in his opinion, for a Tok'ra to start such a conversation.

"Yeah, well… it's not gonna happen when people ram planes into buildings."

Martouf looked behind into the cargo hold. He knew enough about Reynolds to change the subject, and he'd seen the effect of the terrorist attacks on the personnel at the SGC.

"I believe the rest of your team is getting bored." Four Marines were playing cards, a third was typing on a laptop, and a pair of feet was visible from a sleeper. One was cleaning his rifle for about the fifty-millionth time. The rest were reading or writing. "However, we approach P3X-298. We should be dropping out of hyperspace at any moment, colonel…" and the cargo shuttle emerged from the blue-white tunnel. A gorgeous green and blue marble filled the cockpit.

Reynolds closed Martouf's book and was about to toss it off to the side, but half way in the motion, stopped. He then placed it gently on the deck next to the seat after remembering how his father had taught him to 'never throw books, son, and treat them with respect.'

He hooked a headset over his ear and maneuvered the microphone boom in front of his mouth. He tapped a button and the cargo shuttle transmitted a coded IFF on a secured sub space band.

The facility on P3X-298 was tiny. It consisted of a couple of pre-fab building gated in, a few humvees, maybe thirty-odd SGC personnel give or take, a generously stocked armory, a radar system the Tok'ra had helped to modify, and a sub-space listening station the SGC manned with a half dozen Tok'ra. It let them intercept Goa'uld communications in this sector of the galaxy and keep tabs on various Goa'uld bases, mining settlements, and shipyards.

The 'landing pads' for the Tok'ra shuttles consisted of nothing more than a gravel square marked with wood with poles for camouflage netting. Sophisticated Goa'uld sensors would see right through it, though the Tok'ra claimed a powered down shuttle wouldn't show up.

"Transmit the codes, please, Martouf."

"Acknowledged," the Tok'ra answered. He had a small human-built but Tok'ra modified transmitter strapped to the right side of the control orbs. A few pokes at the buttons and n alpha numeric IFF was transmitted. "Done."

"_Welcome back, 47 Niner. Be aware, we have a Condition Bravo."_

Reynolds acknowledged. Martouf looked over. "It means friendly non-SGC personnel in the base…"

"Maybe the Orbanians? The Galarans were also anxious to learn of how you combat the Goa'uld."

"Yeah, maybe," Reynolds said, a soft hmpf following with his eyes narrowing just a little in thought. "I didn't think we'd finalize the treaty with the Galarans so quickly."

"They were anxious to fight the Goa'uld after their personnel were so viciously slaughtered," Martouf answered.

The colonel offered only a shallow and rigid nod in return for Martouf rekindling images of the past. He and his team and SG-15 had been the first there. P3R-272's head grabber thing had been the culprit, and O'Neill's entry of additional gate addresses had indirectly led them to P8V-193, the planet they'd met the Galarans on. They'd found the address for P8V by negotiating with a nomadic group of Stargate travelers who'd originally mistaken his team for the Galarans.

The Galaran expedition, with the goal of building a base to gauge the planet's colonization potential, had been slaughtered by Jaffa. None of the Jaffa had been left and only a staff weapon had been found. Only a handful of Goa'uld System Lords were known to operate in that section of the Perseus arm.

The Galaran Mobile Operations Force had originally thought the SGC responsible, since they'd found SG-3 and SG-15 at the site, but cool heads prevailed.

They descended rapidly towards the planet. They passed mountain ranges and came close to the wooded area the SGC had set up its operations facilities in. The Tok'ra hadn't had tunneling crystals to spare. The colonel could just barely make out part of a well-hidden two canister, eight missile Standard Missile transport erector launcher the Navy had modified using SGC technology for surface-to-space defense.

In the event of attack its missile could reach the high end of low earth orbit and hit death gliders or _Al'kesh_. They didn't have the naquadah to spare for any serious anti-Ha'tak weaponry at the moment.

The cargo shuttle halted in mid air and Reynolds didn't even feel it. Martouf activated the counter-gravity landing plates and decloaked the shuttle. The colonel spotted a second shuttle hidden under camo netting near the treeline.

A pallet jack was being wheeled up to the hatch, past the cockpit. Two loaders and three guards accompanied the electric pallet jack. A young captain, close by with a clip board followed the five men. Reynolds would probably get a quiet sigh from the captain when he informed the young man their cargo was transportable with the hover sled.

Reynolds noted that security seemed a little bit tighter, which made sense. He was curious which ally had decided to visit; it was standard operating procedure not to elaborate on the radio.

A few of his men were in the cockpit, getting their gear together and ready for the gate trip home for much needed rest and relaxation.

The team behind him was debating rather loudly and enthusiastically whether to head towards Sin City or Tahoe for skiing for a tradition Reynolds was trying to start; a yearly team trip somewhere fun.

"Who's that?"

Reynolds looked to the side, where petty officer Crane was pointing.

A humvee had just pulled up and two of the base's Marine personnel had leapt out, followed by an unknown woman, tall, with an odd blue uniform. She looked like a woman who took charge, someone who didn't accept bullshit from anyone. A real Type A.

The passenger door of the humvee opened.

"You've got to be fucking me."

* * *

**Eluuria**

**Sixteen Weeks Post Contact**

Earlier…

Premie slowed the Raptor and brought the nimble tan assault craft into a vertical descent as he activating the ventral RCS thrusters and cut thrust from the main engines. Two other Raptors, one on his flank and one behind, did the same. A pair of Vipers swung up and past, shooting into the deep blue sky until they were nothing more than black dots in the distance.

Snow white contrails were left in their wake by their winglets.

Flying came easily to him. He could fly blindfolded if he had to. Everything was intuitive. It just made sense. The Raptor barely jostled as it touched the ground. The whir of the tyllium engines began to subside as the pilot idled them and began his post-flight check list. With a flick he powered down all the non-essential systems and double-checked the AC to make sure the craft would stay cool and comfortable in searing heat and humidity.

As the Raptor's noisy engines quieted the birds were coming back down and settling on the trees, perched, and watching the Raptor, cawing and squawking a shrill displeasure at him and the two other Colonial ships for disrupting their quiet day.

Premie leaned forward over the controls to catch a glimpse of one bird singing its ire; a weird and disgusting looking bat-vulture or something, with a red head, no feathers, and saggy skin, it's body almost featherless except for the wings with… "Zeus's cock," he cursed, quietly and under his breath. The thing had six eyes.

Captain Upland stretched her arms out and interlocking her fingers, cracked her knuckles. "Good flying, Premie." She gave him a looked and followed his gaze. "Whatcha looking at?" The bird thing had flown away.

He sighed. "Nothing… and it wasn't _that_ hard. We had clear skies, low wind, optimum conditions, Melicia. A monkey could fly this thing down."

She gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Well then, good monkey."

"Bah!" He swatted the hand away and unbuckled his harness to follow the Iddy captain from the cockpit to the cabin.

"Alright." She addressed three Marines and two civilians, detached from the Fleet's civilian science arm to _Argus_. "Doctors, get your equipment from the other Raptor and set it up ASAP… DRADIS indicated this had the highest concentration, so take what samples you need. Marines will form a perimeter. Do not…" she faced the two scientists, young men in their mid-thirties, eager to impress and gain standing within the Fleet's science arm, anxious to get started on their work, "do not go wandering anywhere without a Marine escort. Do not go behind a tree to squat and shit without someone watching you. The Eluurians said these jungles are filled with dangerous animals and poisonous spiders." She saw Premie's eyebrows rise at the mention of spiders, and he looked absolutely sickened. "If something bites you tell the doctor. He'll be near the other Raptor. We don't know what sort of nasty diseases could be out here. Got it?"

The two men nodded. She jerked her head for them to get moving.

Hours later found Premie sitting on the wing tip of the Raptor, playing with a stick he'd found, swatting at the ground and flicking bugs and beetles away. Some ants were marching one-by-one in a line, from one side of the clearing to the other, carrying chunks of leaves and debris. He'd been playing a game on his comp sheet until he'd grown bored of it.

The pilot heard a loud "Uh!" and looked over his shoulder. Upland was swatting at something on her back. He took advantage of her misfortune and his lips cracked into a sly, amused grin. He tried not to laugh. "Get it off!"

A Marine knocked it off with a callous flick of his wrist. He had to hide an amused grin from the captain.

"It's just a beetle!" Premie yelled over, pushing himself off the wing stub and meandering over. He saw her stomp the black and red horned, spiked beetle to death. "Ah, you killed-" it started to move again, though it was more like a death twitch, and Upland smashed her boot heel down twice more until it was plastered. She twisted the heel a few times, grinding it into the dirt. Just to be sure. Then brown-green goop covered the heel. "Overkill."

She growled. "No such thing."

"Scared of a bug?"

Premie thanked the Lords it hadn't been on him and it hadn't been a fraking spider. The eight legged freaks with their beady black eyes were just cringe-worthy, even thinking about them.

"I've lived in cities, space, or in habs. My apartment is in the middle of a freaking city, not this shit. I hated our jungle training. Gods…" she frowned towards the jungle and threw her hands on her hips. "I hope all the planets in the fraking galaxy aren't like this. This jungle's worse than Medra. Why couldn't this planet had been like Sagittaron?" She sighed.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Well, maybe we'll get to strip mine the whole area, right?" Premie looked out towards the jungle, at some weird snake-like creature watching him. Everything here seemed to be some mutated version of animals they'd find on Scorpia or Caprica. "And Sagittaron's covered in piss and shit, who'd want that?"

She tilted her head towards him, annoyed, and threw in a small eye roll for good measure. "Only if there's enough naquadah to make mining worth it… and our DRADIS sweeps weren't encouraging, Premie." Melicia was distracted in thought.

"So that's why we're stuck in this shit? We need to do a ground test?"

"Mm," she nodded. "Amorak and Baltar told us it looks like naquadah could make better superconductors and be used as armor. Plus the fraking energy generating potential is a game changer."

Premie recalled the classified briefing Doctor Baltar had given prior to _Argus_'s departure: superconductors were essential in the creation of FTL jump engines. Naquadah was a highly stable room-temperature superconductor, capable of revolutionizing technology and jump capabilities. Captain Nikon had brushed up on his FTL theory- a class he'd received a solid grade in, but never excelled at- during the past few weeks.

"Impressive. So if we find naquadah, then what?"

Melicia shrugged. "That's for the politicians to decide." She checked her watch. "Last I checked we didn't own this planet… the Eluurians and their allies can negotiate with us, keep it all legal and legitimate I guess." She shrugged again. "Marshal Chetan said they had someone high up in the Sirisi government- what's left of it- trying to get them to surrender. But they've been enemies for centuries. The Eluurians could have an insurgency on their hands and gods know how many Eluurians or other people on this planet we're making enemies of activating the gate-"

"And taking over their world." Premie raised an eyebrow and waited. Melicia didn't respond. "I mean, that's what we're doing, whether we want to admit it or not. We start mining naquadah we'll need battlestars in orbit, troops on the ground, and stability."

Melicia moved towards the Raptor wing stub and leaned back on it, placed her hands on the warm metal and locked her elbows, steadying herself. "No, I know. It's one thing after another, right? It could be like the interwar years all over again." She hummed at the idea and puffed back a loose strand of her hair. Her shoulders drooped lower.

The First to Fifth Colonial Conflicts had seen dozens of small scale wars unworthy of being named a 'Colonial Conflict' involving occupations and insurgencies. It hadn't been pretty. This planet's population was about where Aquaria's was when the planet was invaded and divided into thirds, before the Aquarions made it too costly to stay for the conquerors.

"If only-" Melicia started before being interrupted by a visibly jubilant and excited scientist. The FID officer's eyes shined and glittered as he feverishly handed her a tablet. She read it fast and closed her eyes and nodded, a small smile started to form. This world just got a whole lot fraking more important and the Colonies just got their weapon.

* * *

"Ya know, Teal'c, when these people aren't pointing guns at us or shooting nukes at each other, this is actually a pretty nice little city."

"It is in fact a very large city, O'Neill."

"Reminds me of DC." O'Neill rocked on his heels.

"This city is much larger than your capitol."

O'Neill sighed. "This area, Teal'c." He waved out. "It's sort of like the Mall."

Teal'c and O'Neill were standing as far off to the side as they could without separating themselves from the action around them; even dressed in the same combat uniforms the two stood out. The Colonials were moving this way and that, with speed and purpose, carrying equipment from Raptors and the boxy HL-739 Starlifter heavy lift shuttles.

The colonel sucked in a breadth of warm air. Rain from last night had cooled the city by a degree or two. He felt comfortable in his MCUs and was thankful for the light weight of the armored vest he'd been issued, though he swore it was causing him to itch. A hand rested on the butt of a Colonial-issued pistol, the other rested on his hip with a thumb tucked between his belt and waistband.

The sunglasses he always wore on missions protected his eyes from the glare of the planet's star.

He looked around for just about the hundredth time that hour. He was cautious, deliberate. His eyes scanned everywhere.

A perimeter of soldiers had formed around the memorial park in the capitol city. Eluurian soldiers in olive drab and flak vests holding rifles crossed between an M-16 and Thompson lined the streets with their backs to the park. There were soldiers on the roof, keeping a watch on the Colonials and the crowds. Colonial Marines in their digitals and armor were arrayed around a central landing zone of nearly a dozen Raptors and two Starlifters. One of the shuttles was carrying some sort of Bradley-like attack vehicle he'd spotted in the _Argus_ landing bay a few days ago.

Camouflage tents and pre-fab buildings flanked the Stargate. Thick cables ran from two of the buildings to the Stargate with half connecting to instruments attached to the gate and the other half connecting to instruments pointed at the gate.

In addition to the Colonials were dozens of scientists and soldiers from Eluuria and her allies. A second prominent nation was some place called Ussamai to the northwest of Eluuria. Their uniforms were similar to the Eluurians, their BDUs, but their camoflague patterns were slightly different. Without helmets they were easy to spot; the sun's bright light gleamed off their shaved heads.

There were civilians, too. And there were a lot of them. Most of the buildings had been cleared from around the park but there were people climbing on vehicles and lamp posts and stop lights trying to see over the soldiers.

O'Neill couldn't blame them for wanting to see what would be the first opening of the Stargate in thousands of years on this world. Everyone wanted to be here. And many were carrying gas masks and old, gray helmets in their hands.

"Every world reacts differently," he said under a hushed breathed. He licked drying lips and swallowed. The sun was starting to reach its zenith in the sky, and the temperature would probably shoot up but at least there'd been a respite with the rain.

He pushed up his sun glasses and cupped his hands over his eyes and looked up. Following the flight path of a trio of Vipers he let his hands fall and huffed.

"Is there a problem, O'Neill?" The Jaffa asked, taking a step forward.

The colonel raised tired arms and wiped his face. "No sleep for two days, T."

"We were at Condition One."

"Still…"

"We have gone on numerous missions in which we have slept little, if at all, O'Neill."

"Yeah, but… you know." He sighed and gestured lazily at the Eluurians. "How come we never get a reception like this?" He huffed again. "The last couple we got stuck in a cage- you got blinded- and then we got manipulated by Space Nazis…attacked by alien Killer Lego Bugs…"

"Yet we have not started a nuclear war."

O'Neill wagged a finger. "True…" he inwardly winced. There was that whole nuking Ra thing which was the cause to the current Goa'uld wars and infighting. He remembered Teal'c making a point that the years after Ra's death and before he joined SG1 the System Lords had fought more than in nearly a century. "But really, you ever think we'll come in and save a world… I mean, it's not like we haven't…" he saw Teal'c expression. "Hey, I'm not trying to say we need a ticker tape parade or anything but some appreciation would be nice once in a while, right? Instead we get assholes like Kinsey on our backs… and I _can_ say that out here." The colonel crossed his arms as Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Well, I guess if you put it like that we don't have it so bad… being some tabloid thing is the last thing I'd want."

"Indeed. Fame on Earth comes at a very high price to personal privacy and emotional stability. Your tabloids pay needless attention to trivial matters, O'Neill, such as the breakup of the Spice Girls."

O'Neill shivered. "Sometimes I wonder what Earth's doing to ya. Hm, heads up. Your biggest fan's on her way."

The duo shifted from watching the crowd. Commander Cain, in her duty blues and donning a black combat vest with a pistol strapped to her thigh was walking towards them, frowning with brows furled almost to a 'v', even as the sun was behind her back.

Captain Upland followed a step behind to her right, in the same gear. She'd changed. He'd seen her earlier in the day on _Argus_ in camo hurrying through the corridors.

A Marine escorted them with one of their battle rifles which grabbed O'Neill's attention. His fondness for Colonial light arms had only grown after boarding the _Ha'tak_ and over the last four months.

"Colonel O'Neill."

"Commander." He nodded. "Captain." He nodded again. "Captain Nikon around?"

Upland frowned. "No. He's flying a CAP. Why?"

O'Neill shrugged a solitary shoulder and made a noise to indicate no reason other than curiosity. The last few weeks if you got one you got the other. He also didn't really feel a burning desire to believe her. Intelligence officers and Marines and some civilians didn't load up on Raptors for run-of-the-mill CAPs. So, yeah, he figured they were flying- he threw in mental air quotes- 'a CAP', aka a secret mission to somewhere.

He'd been locked out of CIC and most of the ship. Hell, most of the crew seemed to lack access to most of the ship.

And he had enough experience dealing with his own nation's spooks to pick up on the subtle indicators. The simplest lies were the short and sweet ones; give enough information but not enough. Saying he was flying a CAP was both easy to remember and made sense. That's what pilots did. It was the minute ticks in facial expressions, the shifting in body language, and the context of their situation which made O'Neill suspicious. Upland was pretty good at hiding the body language hints, and he was slightly impressed, but when it came to experience, he had a lot more than she did.

Pressing the matter, however, would be an exercise in futility.

"So… then… what's up? How's the war goin'?" He smiled at Commander Cain

Cain looked sour, as always when around Teal'c. O'Neill saw how she gave him those distrusting looks that fluttered from the golden tattoo of Apophis to his gut, trying to hide her disgust at the idea of a snake rolling around inside of him.

Captain Upland answered. "The war's going well. The Eluurians should be in the Sirisi capitol within a few months. We accomplished our mission. It's their war now. Right now it's time-"

"It's time to dial Earth, colonel," Commander Cain interrupted.

"DHD?"

"Located, but too heavily guarded," Cain answered, frowning."Casualties would have been extreme." There was a pause. "For them. The proconsul's waiting to meet representatives from your single nation. America."

He didn't like her tone. The colonel snipped back.

"Yeah, uh, I know the name of my country, thank you."

"…yes…" she said back, barely above a whisper. "And we'll need intelligence on Sokar and the Goa'uld."

"It might be prudent to wait until we have returned, Commander Cain," Teal'c countered. "Colonel O'Neill can make no promises."

The colonel threw up his hands. "Hands tied." He leaned to his left to get a look past the commander. "If you don't mind… can we go home?"

He looked at Teal'c, the two exchanging an unseen and understood understanding.

Once again there was a moment's pause, punctuated by the rumbling of jet engines, the sounds of soldiers, and a weighty silence between colonel and commander.

Finally, Cain nodded once. Curtly. She turned, her ponytail whipping on her shoulder. Not looking back she said, "Then let's go to Earth."

Captain Upland shrugged at the two and turned to follow the commander.

"Hm…" O'Neill rocked on his heels, driving them a little deeper into the soft soil. "Yes… _Earth_."

* * *

Commander Cain stepped through the shimmering blue puddle and felt ripped from reality. Instantaneously she was transported across untold light years, through the cold and vast reaches of space, and was greeted by the sound of her boot on a stone platform.

"First time's the best," O'Neill said over his shoulder with a smile. He and Teal'c walked down the platform's stepped ramp.

Cain's eyes flicked from him to the surrounding area. A forest, not unlike those on Tauron provided the scenery. A bird flew overhead. The sun was beating down on them but it was noticeably cooler, with significantly less humidity than Eluuria. There were snow-capped mountains in the far distance, with a thick fog on the slopes, covering the trees.

Captain Upland, Proconsul Asselo, Major Usher and two additional Marines stepped out from behind her.

Two Marines, their escorts, were stiff and tense and could see the semi-concealed men in the tree line with their combat goggles' infrared. The others saw a large vehicle of some kind with some sort of heavy machine gun, manned by a gunner. There were two men in camouflage standing by.

The Marine sergeant whispered, "Ten men, two manning what looks like a machine gun of some sort. The rest spread out between ten and two o'clock."

"Stand down," she forcefully whispered back to her Marines, whose fingers were itching. "Major?" she motioned to her left and right.

On the left and right Cain saw there were red signs with a skull and crossed bones, with white letting reading 'DANGER' in all capital lettering.

Major Usher saw it. "I'd guess land mines, sir," he whispered.

Colonel O'Neill held up his hand for her to wait. He moved down the stepped ramp of the gate. A soldier, who Cain assumed knew O'Neill, came forward. His movements were still cautious, though friendly.

"I'm confused, commander." Asselo was standing next to the commander. Major Usher and his Marines had moved down the platform a little, still cautious. "If this is Earth-"

"This isn't Earth," she snapped back. Her eyes narrowed, darkening at O'Neill's back. The man he was talking to was saying something into his radio. "Obviously," she growled.

Colonel O'Neill walked back, with Teal'c and the other American by his side. "There's a base not far from here. We can go there."

"Why aren't we on Earth?" Asselo asked.

Cain's gaze could've burned water. "Yes, colonel. The agreement was Earth. We took you to the planet-"

"You will see Earth," he interjected forcefully, "but on our terms. We'll head to the base, I'll contact the SGC, and from there, we'll arrange something… we've been away from Earth for over four months. I think _you_ can wait a few more hours… so, how about we head to the base?"

* * *

The image of a jet black battlestar reigning death on a world played over and over again. The image looped back. The gun batteries erupted as kinetic rods were launched at thousands of kilometers per hour down at an unsuspecting, primitive world below.

The first looked down, staring at the woman whose eyes were focused on infinity, lips moving quickly as she uttered nonsense. "The Colonials have made their first move. This world was the first to fall to their influence. Now they know of everyone. They're a greater threat than they ever were before."

A second stared at the first, head cocked to the side. "The annihilation of the human race…" the second stated, leadingly.

"Will be much more difficult."

"If it's decided to be so."

The first balled a fist, looking up at the second and then back down into the murky waters of its attention's object, carefully studying the woman, almost trying once again to understand her and the storm brewing behind those blank and careless eyes. She mumbled as the two debated.

"_Humanity_…" the first almost spat. "If? Humanity must fall for us to rise, Six. They must perish for the Cylon race to be safe."

"There is dissension."

"Consensus is reached that we must plan for their annihilation."

"And what of the great allies of humanity? What of the other races which walk this galaxy covertly?"

"The destruction of Kobol's children is but a phase of a comprehensive plan."

"It is impossible to destroy all life in this galaxy!" The Six countered. "And we plan but you act before we are ready," Six added. "What if they had discovered the admiral had been subverted?"

"The operation was a necessary risk. Safety protocols were enacted."

Six took a single step towards the other. "It was an operation taken without consensus, One. What if she'd been discovered?"

One flicked a hand, dismissing the concern of the Cylon. "You act too slowly, Six. You and Eight waver."

"Eight wavers in the face of discovery. Our provocations necessitate pre-emptive war by the Colonies as the only recourse."

"And how will they find us?"

"We need more time to prepare," Six said, tone unwavering, absolute. "Once we are prepared then you will have your answer from the others."

"And give them time they'll reverse engineer the Goa'uld technology-"

"If we attack now our fleets will be decimated. The destruction of the Kobolian legacy would bring our own downfall; a war of that size would draw in the Goa'uld and expose us. Scouts have already detected Goa'uld incursions. It is a matter of months before Sokar learns the location of the Colonies." The Six strode over to the center of the room. "We've put our faith in God's creation. The hybrids will know…" Six nodded at the muttering woman, her eyes darting left and right, her bright blue irises almost glowing in the dim light of the chamber. "She'll bring us closer. She'll tell us when the time's right. Have faith."

One kneeled beside the tank, putting a hand into the fluid. "Platitudes… We'll exploit their division. Our creation, not God's… nothing more than a tool… they analyze variables… very logical, Six, not superstition." One looked up.

The Cylon waited and waited. As if on cue the hybrid would attain a state of… lucid ramblings, coherent in comparison and parallel to her jumbling of what the Six and others called 'prophecy' and what the One called an 'analysis of variables and stimuli.'

One stood, casting a lonely look to the Six, standing and watching and waiting for the precious prophecy. The One should have snickered. There were more important things to do that wait. One left, turning away from Six, and left the hybrid's chamber. A Centurion watched the departure, its head tilting at the conclusion of the exchange.

The Six was about to capitulate, concede that today the hybrid would not speak in anything more than incoherent messages about maintenance reports, FTL dynamics, and a repeating problem in the number eighty-nine, subsection alpha two communication relay hub.

Six was by the side of the hybrid's pool, kneeling. Six spoke. "I-"

The hybrid closed her eyes and turned, opening them again, a fire burning behind. A hand reached for Six's.

"What happens when the immovable wall meets the unstoppable object? Two colors short of a full major. The electrons spin around the proton, the core of the atom, perfection in its inception, a marvel of the universe, what is life without faith? Stop… reverse synchronization on number two FTL matrices core… check… check is good.

"Instability in life carbon dioxide level in sector nine-seven gamma epsilon… dispatching repair crew.

"They do not deserve to live.

"Look in the mirror, see the arrogance in the creators, racemic.

"The snakes are coming, his hand rules from the shadow, his shadow darkens the light of the flame.

"Counting down. All functions nominal. Counting down. The center holds. The falcon hears the falconer. The falcon balks. Infrastructure, negative. Wetware, negative. Please step off the ride, collect your belongings. Error. Error. Error…

"The galaxy will burn."

The hybrid's hand reached up. Her eyes focused on the Six.

"Slip the bonds of time and space and touch the face of God."

* * *

AN: The inclusion of some worlds which were not discovered/contacted until later in the series is due to the war and altered events. Some entities/organizations from the books may also make appearances in later chapters as long as they can fit in with the show's canon events. The next chapters will be at a faster pace to advance the story roughly eighteen months into the future.


	17. Chapter 17

AN: Apologies for the delay. I updated on another site and updating FF slipped my mind. Jeez...

And thank you to everyone who reviewed.

As a note this isn't the time jump. Combining this with the time jump wouldn't have made sense so I split it. The next two chapters I might, might try something a little different. The first would be a perspective from non-Colonials with the next chapter filling in the action witnessed or concluding the side plot from that previous non-Colonial chapter.

And SGU's cancellation... damn, I loved that show. And a character there makes an appearance here, as will others from it from time to time. But man. And I read in Mallozzi's blog (the producer) some interesting stuff for what they'd had planned for the SGverse. Oh well. I'll miss ya, SGU.

And story:

* * *

Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c felt their bodies dematerialize, the tingle coursing through their bodies as they stepped through the event horizon of an outgoing wormhole. The atmosphere and lighting instantly changed, their boots clanking as they hit the grated metal of the SGC's embarkation/arrival ramp.

Immediately O'Neill saw a large American flag hanging in the corner. He wondered why, but General Hammond, Major Frasier, Colonel Mackenzie, Lieutenant Colonel Dixon, Major Davis, Major Feretti, SG5, SG6, and others he'd never seen before. There were even a few Tok'ra and Orbanians plus a handful of others in strange gray uniforms he'd never seen. Colonel Reynolds had mentioned some new ally and that must have been them.

They came to attention, their heels clicking. Martouf and Colonel Reynolds exited a few seconds after O'Neill and Teal'c.

Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c walked down the ramp, O'Neill and the general exchanging quick salutes. "Welcome home, SG1…" the general's eyes, sturdy and powerful, still betrayed his feelings. "Welcome home."

* * *

"My God, colonel… I can't believe it."

Colonel O'Neill acknowledged the stranger's disbelief with a lazy shrug. Those were words of understatement. He waited until an excited silence had lingered and had had its intended effect. "I don't know what else to tell ya, ambassador, that's basically the whole story. We were on our mission, one of their not-so-stealthy stealth ships shows up, gets blasted, we save them, they save us, and fifteen weeks later here we are." He spread his hands like he was going to say 'ta da'.

For the colonel the story was pretty dang on simple. Even boring. Get rescued. Have a space battleship fight with lots of explosions, board an alien warship, go to another planet, go to a couple different planets, and then gate home. It was all pretty simple, really.

Teal'c inclined his head. "Colonel O'Neill's story is indeed the truth, Ambassador Faxon. The Goa'uld were also unaware of their presence in that region of space. If the Goa'uld were aware of them they would have been massacred many centuries ago and not allowed to grow into the threat they are now."

Ambassador Faxon mouthed an 'oh' and looked over his shoulder at the other man, a senator from Washington, who'd accompanied him.

"We're all glad to have you back colonel, Teal'c," Hammond said, probably for the third or fourth time in the debriefing over the last hour.

"I always find my way back eventually, sir."

General Hammond took a deep but shallow breath. He knew he'd let himself get too close to SG1 over the last four years but the small SG community and missions almost necessitated that, at least with his flagship team. Explaining couldn't wait. "Jacob came by last week." He'd tell them later, without Faxon or the senator present, that he'd come to drop off some technology which could help in the War on Terror. "The operative they sent went rogue or missing. He only heard this second hand from another Tok'ra named Malek. He said their agent, Marteen, recruited a Lucian woman. Does that mean anything to you, Teal'c?"

He had to make it clear they hadn't given up on SG1 and SG8. He knew the colonel well enough he'd never think the SGC gave up, but every man no matter experience or background needed to hear that they hadn't been written off, that they were still thought of and searched for.

"The Lucians were once a significant power in their region of space. They are no longer. Their current relationship with the Goa'uld System Lords is complex and would require lengthy explanation and exposition. Suffice it to say, if this Tok'ra agent has the reputation I believe then any human, man or woman he recruits would be similar. The Lucians will do nearly anything to advance their standing."

O'Neill sighed and dismissed the general's explanation with a little wave. He had a mischievous comment ready which, if there had been Tok'ra in the room, would have gotten him a stink eye. "All Tok'ra always seem to go missing or get captured or something on missions. They didn't treat us all that bad though they could really go for not making their food so damn sweet." He patted his stomach. "I swore I've gained weight from that diet. I don't know how they're all so thin."

Despite the little humor the colonel felt more respect for General Hammond and all the efforts he'd put into finding the team. Colonel Reynolds had told him the general had deployed half a dozen teams to worlds which could possibly send help or a ship. They'd sent more UAVs then they should have searching for the team. They'd lost a few MALPs to enemy Goa'uld fire, too. General Hammond had had to call in a few favors he'd had with the Tok'ra and even the Tollan in seeking their assistance.

Ambassador Faxon leaned forward. "Still though, it's really amazing. I mean, we've been looking for allies like this for over four years, right? So could they be the ones who could finally fight the Goa'uld? What you've told us of their accomplishments is astounding, least of all their military capabilities."

"Their capabilities are impressive, Ambassador Faxon, but one must remain cautious when dealing with such a power," Teal'c expertly advised. Faxon acknowledged Teal'c's expertise with a slight tilt of the head.

"I'm just hoping that they turn out to be a bit more proactive than some of the others we've fostered alliances with… the Nox and Tollan, they're friends, but we need allies with capabilities who wuill engage the Goa'uld." Faxon's eyebrows furled as a thought occurred. "What if they want to come to Earth?"

The man to Faxon's right had nodded and leaned forward onto his elbows, positioning them at the edge of the table and turned a few pages in the dossier he had brought. Two of his aides were sitting in chairs at the back of the SGC conference room, meticulously taking notes.

There was a hard power radiating from the man's eyes and posture. The way he sat and the manner he spoke was cool and collected, serious yet personal.

"That's actually a concern of ours at Emerging Threats." He faced O'Neill. "A lot's changed in the months you've been gone, colonel, and the subcommittee discussed it last night before I left." He sighed. "Colonel Maybourne-" O'Neill closed his eyes and had mentally sighed, with even Teal'c expressing a visceral dislike at the mention of the man's name- "sold SGC secrets to the Russians. They have a Stargate and DHD but by agreement with us will not use it. The last thing we want is for them to try and find the Colonials and contact them. We have enough on our plate now, especially with the Goa'uld and now our growing commitment in Afghanistan. The last… sort of difficulties that we need are the Russians entering into some sort of an alliance with the Colonies."

"Senator Armstrong's correct," General Hammond said, "the Russians only shut down their gate program for access to ours. And they're still fighting the agreement to shut down their gate. Hard liners in their military and the FSB want to keep it active. The CIA's already issued a preliminary report that the Russians may have gained valuable technologies they've yet to disclose to us."

Teal'c and Colonel O'Neill had been brought up to speed with an abridged version of events. O'Neill had been livid when he'd heard of Maybourne's involvement in the Russian program.

Teal'c's eyebrow rose. "With a DHD they could be capable of overriding the SGC's Stargate at their pleasure, General Hammond. Would it not be wise to secure the DHD as well?"

"We've still got some discussing of that with them," the ambassador added. "The Russians want access to the SGC. But we'll see where that goes. The 'Watergate'-" O'Neill sighed and Armstrong chuckled, "-incident as its being called, it's been used by some in Washington to criticize the SGC." His eyes darted quickly and cautiously at Senator Armstrong.

Senator Armstrong clenched a fist, his lips pursed. "I'll be frank, gentlemen. There have been serious setbacks for the Stargate Program," he softened the fist to a stop-sign hand gesture, "not all the SGC's fault. The war with Sokar has cost us billions through expanded operations. We're committed to funding the SGC…" his voice lowered and his chin was tucked as he spoke more to the table than the men and women in the conference room, "even if it's going to cost eighteen billion… But with Afghanistan funding is going to need… precise and specific justification."

"We did get their engine and inertial dampener technology," O'Neill protested quickly. "I gave the storage device… thingy… to the general when we arrived." Hammond nodded. "It's got a lot of neat stuff Carter was able to download from their Mesh, stuff they didn't consider important but could really help us. Hell, it'll probably help us with our new allies, the er, Galarans or whoever. So what else?"

Senator Armstrong swallowed and frowned. "Justification in regards to the Goa'uld, colonel, and if we currently have allies who are technologically advanced… we don't have to keep going after Goa'uld System Lords. Even with the Protected Planets Treaty there comes a tipping point where something this command does may force the System Lords' hand. Asgard or not. There are factions who believe we should devote the majority of resources to strengthening our alliances and building weapons and fighters and not attacking the Goa'uld. Disengagement."

Colonel O'Neill dialed it down to where he just offered the senator a challenging look rather the one knowing at him. That one could very well be seen as impudent, condescending, or annoyed. Whatever it would have been the senator could have picked and chosen in what manner he wanted to be offended. But the old saying of 'honey' and 'attracting bees' and a more neutral challenging glance had won out.

"You want a justification? I think it's pretty clear what's going on out there justifies it all. Billions of people dying, fleets being destroyed, and planets rendered uninhabitable... or how about the billions enslaved to megalomaniac aliens? There are so many people out there who could use our help!" The colonel inwardly sighed. He had a difficult time not thinking of politicians as composites of the corrupt Mayor Quimby or the chronically incompetent Chief Wiggum. His hand rose and then fell back to the table. The noise had its intended effect. "If Sokar gains control over the System Lords- hell, he might get bloody, break a leg doing it, and maybe get some teeth knocked out but he'll come back a lot stronger than ever… and the Asgard may not be able to protect us if their war with the Replicators goes south. Speaking of which, have you heard from them, sir?"

"Since the incident in orbit with the Replicators we've only had one brief moment of contact with the Asgard," Hammond said in support, "and that was to transmit gate coordinates for worlds with no Goa'uld presence."

O'Neill pumped his fist. "Go Thor!"

Hammond suppressed a nod. "Senator, in the past six months we've been able to use our resources to significantly impede Sokar's advance. Not only have we been successful in interdicting trinium shipments, we've destroyed fuel depots, weapon production facilities, instigated rebellions… the trinium Colonel Reynolds captured will allow many of our offensive and defensive technology programs to move into prototype and soon, production stages. The automated construction technology we're bringing online would never have been procured if we had scaled back Stargate exploration like some had advocated in '98."

O'Neill coughed. "Kinsey."

"The reality of the situation is, senator, we cannot stop exploring the gate network. If we do the Goa'uld would have time to restructure and adapt to our small unit tactics which have been so successful in the past engagements. The Protected Planets Treaty does not protect any of our off-world bases, either."

"Still." Armstrong's tone was rigid, almost cold, and he had forced himself to hold back a flare for O'Neill. "The loss of the X-301 has put the program under a microscope. We're committed to funding the SGC and DARPA's Stargate Derived Technologies Initiative…"

O'Neill held up a finger. "You mean Major Carter's SDT Initiative? I think she was the one pushing DARPA for it before we left."

"Yes, colonel, of course… Provided it produces advancements for usable technologies we're going to continue to fund it," he paused, "and with this new War on Terror there are members on the committees overseeing the SGC who want to see the technologies be of some use here, on Earth and soon. The SGC needs to provide something soon and something big for continued support… and I say this as a supporter of the SGC."

"The Colonies," Teal'c stated.

"If the Colonies are an ally which can aide in the defense of this nation and planet then yes, the Colonies would be that something." Armstrong definitively nodded and closed his notebook. "I think it's time we met the Colonials. Will you be bringing them here, general?" the senator's eyebrows were elevated.

"We're preparing temporary quarters for them."

"Very good." The senator rose. The officers followed. "I'm needed back in Washington but I'd like to meet and talk with them, get a feel for where they're coming from but I'll leave the discussion to Ambassador Faxon. Ambassador, I think we have a few things to discuss before they arrive. General Hammond, could you inform me an hour before they're due to arrive?"

"Of course."

The conference room quickly cleared. Senator Armstrong and Ambassador Faxon left with the half dozen of their aides and the Air Force, Army and Navy personnel in the room, intelligence officers, had followed the civilians out. O'Neill had watched them leave, probably heading straight to spooky level twenty for their own conference. They'd be spending days with the SGC's scientists going over the technical details of the tyllium-ion engines, the anti-gee compensators, and a few other goodies Major Carter had been able to download from their Mesh and what she'd learned in the past four months. They'd managed to bring back a significant amount of recorded news casts and historical texts on the storage devices.

O'Neill had let his mind drift for the few moments of silence. His face betrayed little of the emotional battle raging inside of him. He felt pensive and relieved but there was a growing rumble in his chest which was a ball of mixed emotions. There was a tingle of apprehension of the unknown quickly followed by a relaxing feeling of familiarity. He was home…

"The CIA, NSA, and DIA are going to want briefings as soon as possible, colonel." The general's pronouncement snapped O'Neill out of his distraction. He realized he'd been staring off into space.

O'Neill threw on a charming smile and cocked his head. "An alphabet party!"

"You'll be heading to Washington before the Christmas holiday to brief the Joint Chiefs and Secretary Simms. I didn't want to raise this with Faxon or Armstrong, but I'm concerned about why they didn't let the rest of your team and SG8 accompany you back."

Teal'c answered as he grasped his hands behind his back. "They claimed it was a security issue and that Major Carter and Daniel Jackson would be of further assistance on the Colonies. SG8 would be of similar assistance in advising their Marines on the tactics employed by the Jaffa."

"Yeah… that's what they 'claimed'," O'Neill said as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

"Were you coerced?"

O'Neill shrugged and stared out to the Stargate down below. "Not really… just that if we didn't help when they were being pursued then we'd have probably ended up all dead… they made the point clear if they died we'd go with 'em. We were being chased by two motherships so we didn't much argue. Carter was pretty intrigued by their FTL."

"That doesn't sound like a good start, colonel. How much did Major Carter give them?"

"Technology? Not too much… the shield penetration technology for our new missiles and she had to show them how to link, sync… whatever between computers. And some other pointers… we told them a few details on the galaxy… let them know the Asgard are watching our backs."

"I see."

"These people are powerful sir and they're going to throw their weight around."

He was not looking forward to a certain lady commander making her presence felt.

"Could they be a threat?"

"Possibly, sir. They still don't know too much about Earth and our defenses. We've been sort of bluffing them with our capabilities but even with the new naquadah missiles we wouldn't stand a chance if they wanted to press." He shrugged, something he'd been a lot of recently. "Carter's the one to ask on the technology. We saw what they can do but the specifics of it… I don't know. What they pulled back on that planet has me worried, general. _Argus_ annihilated the command and control capabilities of an entire nation almost overnight. They captured all of the Sirisi Alliance satellites in half a day using their Raptors. And then they went for other targets. I'd advise we keep them at arm's length until we can get some defenses up, sir, or something." He sighed. "They may not have any overt interest in Earth but a battlestar or two showing up in orbit could start making…" he raised his hands and flexed his fingers for air quotes, "'suggestions' to us."

"Jacob said he'd be delivering supplies to make the conversion of our ICBMs easier, colonel, but until then I agree with you. From what you've said the Colonials like getting their way. And right now they have the ships and firepower to get it."

Teal'c stood taller. "What of _Operation Duff_?" He inclined his head and raised an eyebrow until it arched. "That could provide significant reinforcement to Earth's defenses."

General Hammond had a momentary look of extreme exacerbation flash across his face before it returned to its stoic normality. He decided to humor the colonel and Teal'c. "Operation… '_Duff'_ hasn't gotten beyond the planning stages. The Tok'ra don't have the ships and we don't know where there's a suitable facility to train for something like that. Colonel Reynolds however continued fine-tuning the plan while you all were absent. We're also awaiting word from the Pentagon on whether the additional teams will be forming."

"They have still not made their decision, General Hammond?"

Hammond shook his head. "With the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon priorities shifted, Teal'c. Two hundred highly trained special forces soldiers are a rare commodity now. Special forces are already being used heavily in Afghanistan."

Colonel O'Neill smiled while staring down at the floor. _Operation Duff_ was his brain child, something similar to Carter's Stargate Derived Technologies Initiative at Area 51 with DARPA. _Duff_ could be that game changer everyone wanted. The System Lords would piss their pants and cry to their mommies and maybe stomp their feet about how unfair it all was.

The colonel tucked _Duff_ into the back of his mind and held it in reserve. If the senator wanted something big for justification, he'd get it. After what he saw in the Colonies, _Duff_ could be possible. If only they could get a few dozen Raptors…

"We should get back and talk with the Colonials. They wanted to see Earth pretty… uh, they were enthusiastic about coming here, sir." O'Neill pulsed his eyebrows and gave Teal'c a slap on the back as they headed out.

"It'll have to wait a while, colonel." General Hammond said as he finished putting his papers back into a black leather folder. O'Neill and Teal'c turned quickly. "We scheduled activations to Galar in seven minutes and another at 1530."

"Sir?"

The general sighed. "Every other day we dial out. We've been trying to contact the Enkarens for the last six weeks but haven't been able to establish a connection. We're trying to see if the Tok'ra can send a ship to investigate next month."

* * *

Commander Cain drummed her fingers impatiently, earning the ire of Proconsul Asselo and the stiff not-a-stare from Captain Upland, who was staring by not staring. Politics was bullfrak and politicos hammering out agreements were full of false compliments, platitudes, and fakery. There was too much tip-toeing around. Her childhood had taught her to act and adapt to the circumstances of her surroundings. If she hadn't learned early in life how to act, how to survive, she'd have been massacred like a billion other Taurons… or taken. Like so many had been.

An hour had ticked by an hour ago. It was like they were running on a Mobius strip. Spinning the wheels. Progress had been so slow the commander doubted whether they'd even made any. They'd agree to some sort of discussion in a month's time regardless of the outcome here. But she couldn't really classify that was any sort of substantial progress.

If only they were back on Tauron, back in the Old Days. Taurons were notorious in the Colonies for coming to quick decisions. Some said they were impulsive. Whatever it was each side stated their grievances, spoke plain, and then came to an agreement. Or didn't and fought it out. The winner got his or her request and the loser either manned up or ran away with their cock between their legs. Cain mentally snickered; the Old Days. The Old Days, long gone, they'd gradually disappeared centuries ago as Tauron had been forced to reinvent itself to compete with Caprica.

She closed her eyes. "What we need, Ambassador Faxon is twofold. The first is access to Earth and the second is access to the Stargate network… being supplied with addresses." Her deep brown eyes shimmered under the artificial, stale light of the conference room. "Of course those addresses would be bartered for…" She looked around the room as if judging it as unworthy.

Ambassador Faxon put down a pen and folded his hands. "I reviewed the information Colonel O'Neill provided in his debriefing. You want access for archeological purposes?" He found himself addressing her instead of the civilian diplomat. Faxon made sure his change of direction was dignified. "Proconsul, we'll need time to independently confirm the results of your DNA tests done on SG1 and SG8."

"Of course."

"Additionally, I'm not exactly sure how you deal with issues of sovereignty on your planets, but here on Earth the request that's been issued- for an archeological expedition- would result in the violation of territory of half a dozen sovereign governments."

"Ambassador," Asselo said, raising his chin, "sovereignty of planets is subordinate to the sovereignty of the united federal government in Caprica City." He lightly frowned. "It's unfortunate that Earth is not united… this would be much less difficult-" Faxon offered up a chuckle to acknowledge the sentiment but not agree- "however, the United States is the most influential nation on this planet. Yes?"

"Um… yes."

Commander Cain leaned forward. "Then use your influence and tell them to allow it."

Colonel O'Neill coughed. "That's not really how it works here. We just can't go to nations, which may be our friends, and demand they allow someone access."

"The nations in the region Doctor Jackson mentioned are our allies like Colonel O'Neill said," Faxon explained, "and telling them to allow you to search the area for the wreckage of your Thirteenth Tribe's ships- if they even arrived on Earth- would necessitate a disclosure of the Stargate Program, which the United States has no plans of doing at the moment."

"Where else would they have gone?" Cain asked. She shrugged. "There is sufficient documentation; the Scrolls and corroborating independent accounts of the Thirteenth's Exodus have them leaving to settle on Earth."

O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "I know Daniel's mentioned it but have you thought that maybe they just came back to Earth after the Goa'uld took you all a long, long time ago in a… just a long time ago? Eleven thousand years ago Ra came to Earth. Who knows, right? That's a long time to forget where you all came from." His head tilted and he locked gazes with the commander.

Captain Upland had watched the four go back and forth for almost two hours, offering her advice here and there. "Certainly if Earth were in our position and had the opportunity to unlock the secrets of a lost past you would try as hard as you could to discover those secrets? The presence of the genetic differences and similarities in the population marker nucleotide sequences we've identified between our two people make this much more complicated. It's our history, part of who we are." She gave a minute pump of her fist for added effect. "If the president discloses the Stargate's existence and what transpired over the last fifteen weeks there will be questions." She crossed her arms on the table. "We like to be prepared. We want to minimize any sort of panic associated with the revelation that the Colonies are not alone… and I mean _alien_ and human life… and that we may have a significant threat materializing on our borders… our actions are motivated by a desire to protect the tens of billions of people on the Colonies, ambassador."

Ambassador Faxon's face, which had been bordering between the tranquil nature of a seasoned diplomat and an annoyed man transitioned back to the former.

"You do make an excellent point, captain. And of course I'll take this back to Washington to discuss it. I think discussing it here and now would be counterproductive as we still have many questions, which I am sure you do as well. Our nation embraces liberty and freedom and democracy and there have been incidents in the recent past where the governments of other planets have presented… incomplete, uh, pictures of their national ideals which have led to tensions. We merely wish to be thorough.  
"Once Doctor Jackson returns and we can have more time we can narrow down what may have happened to the Thirteenth's ships. I do want to emphasize that we acknowledge your concern and your desire to answer this historical question. There are just extenuating circumstances which preclude us from coming to a decision regarding an archeological expedition at this moment."

"Very well, ambassador," Asselo offered, tossing up a smile. "In the interest of disclosure the Colonies embrace similar ideals. However, we are close to what you may call, and what Doctor Jackson has described as a 'confederation.' The Twelve Worlds have the freedom to decide for themselves what governments they embrace, though at the inter-Colonial federal level we are a democracy.  
"We also have the issue of Stargate addresses to discuss."

Colonel O'Neill held up a finger. "You all might want to wait on going out and exploring the gate network. After the first time getting in over your head can just sort of happen-"

"Like Earth?"

O'Neill set his steely eyes on Cain. "There's no denying and no need to cover up that Earth stumbled. Everyone does…." As he trailed off almost everyone could visualize the ellipses and the implied sentiment.

The colonel figured that Tok'ra they'd 'rescued' or whatever- he hadn't seen him for a while- had spilled the beans on Earth's forays into the galaxy. Though the Tok'ra couldn't have known much, O'Neill figured, since he was some deep cover agent out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

"Eluuria will surely become known as an outlier, colonel," Captain Upland protested, her tone making it sound like a question and statement. She coughed very quietly, no louder than a soft rumble in her throat. "The two encounters we've had with Stargates either directly or indirectly have led to military engagement. However, the situation on Eluuria was hardly our fault. Those alliances were on the brink of nuclear war. Our arrival was just a convenient excuse for the Sirisi to fire."

"Indeed," Cain said, "under the laws of former nations before unification firing on the military of another is an act of war. We were quite constrained with our actions in regards to the full breath of response we were legally permitted to take under Colonial law. _Argus_ had sufficient nuclear weaponry, as well as kinetic weaponry, to do significantly more damage." Her nose wrinkled. "The Sirisi should be glad we didn't press the attack."

Colonel O'Neill inwardly frowned and looked away, worried he'd react negatively to what he saw; there was a flash in the commander's dark eyes, a moment where the darkness grew. He'd seen people like her. He wasn't oblivious to her heritage. He'd soaked up as much as he could about the Cylon War. Tauron had been a battleground for twelve years and the scuttlebutt had it that the commander had grown up running from one robot or another, one refugee camp to another. Someone even said she shot her own sister as she was being dragged away by Cylons, rather than let her be taken.

Rumors. They weren't to be trusted.

He'd mistaken what he'd seen earlier in her as professional detachment. He thought she was a woman who was just damned good at separating personal feelings from professional realities. Now he saw what scared him. Some people who'd seen war, grown up with genocide, grew up to fear it and escape it and do everything they could to avoid it or stop it. Peacefully. Others who escaped the violence became the perpetrator. He hoped beyond reason that his fears were overblown, even as his subconscious kept poking at him, warning him.

He snapped himself back with a quick, small shake of the head. Cain was still eying him and Faxon and the other SGC personnel.

Ambassador Faxon had resumed talking. "The list of Stargate addresses we've come to acquire has been accomplished through difficulty and great expense, commander… proconsul." He coughed. "In lives and time and resources and there are many planets out there which rely on the SGC for protection either overtly or by keeping their locations confidential. Some planets wish to only have minimal dealings with Stargate travelers and have trusted us to consult them before divulging addresses.  
"While we understand your desire to explore the galaxy we cannot release gate addresses to you at this time… perhaps once we've gotten to know each other… and when the rest of our personnel are released back into our custody we can negotiate for access and trade."

Proconsul Asselo glanced to the side and exchanged a concerned frown with Captain Upland. He turned back to the ambassador. "They're of course free to return once we return to the Colonies," he said, shaking his head, "they always were."

Captain Upland explained. "_Argus_ is a special reconnaissance ship and many of her systems are classified. The number of personnel allowed aboard is limited and the risk of engagement with the Goa'uld… Major Carter and Doctor Jackson were both quite…" the corner of her mouth ticked up, her cheek dimpled. "They were quite valuable to your program and we wanted to establish the safety of the route and availability of a gate first."

Faxon picked up a pen and made a note. "I think it's clear that each of us wants something from a potential future relationship. We have gate addresses and technologies and you have technologies and resources we could use. But I think the fundamental question… the question I have to ask before I make a recommendation to Washington is to ask what you want from this? I would also like for the United States to send a small diplomatic team of analysts to Eluuria to properly assess the situation."

The proconsul looked at the table and down to the right. He chewed the inside of his lip. "Very well. You may send a team to Eluuria through the Stargate if you forward dossiers on its members and the specific purpose of their mission. May I counter and say that the United States and Colonies both send teams of anthropologists, linguists, archeologists, and whomever may be required to learn of each other's history?"

The ambassador paused for a moment. He glanced back over his shoulder; his aides were stiff and jotting down notes. Unfortunately the Colonials failed a test he'd concocted with Senator Armstrong; they were bartering away access to Eluuria, a right they didn't have.

He'd picked up on the Colonial attitudes early from what O'Neill and Teal'c had discussed during their preliminary meeting. Senator Armstrong, back when he was just a twenty-five year old doe eyed and idealistic young lawyer in the Office of the Legal Adviser at State he'd dealt with sovereignty issues and had suggested to the ambassador a means of gauging how a possible future relationship might develop between two governments used to getting their way.

"I believe we can agree to that in principle. But what is you ultimate goal?"

"Half a century ago a war started with the Cylons. We believed ourselves to be the last remnant of humanity, ambassador, the very last remnant."

Upland interrupted. "Even the Thirteenth Tribe had passed into nothing more than myth and legend."

"The captain's correct," Asselo continued. "We'd fought wars, devastating wars between ourselves. Sagittaron was wrecked by internal struggle and is a cold, industrial world. Caprica was once close to nuclear Armageddon. Our people united in the face of adversity and the genocide of our species. Now we know there are thousands of worlds with billions of humans enslaved to the Goa'uld. The President and the Quorum have expressed their… concern… that a human being should be enslaved to aliens masquerading as gods. As dramatic as it sounds, ambassador, we can't let that continue. We also need weapons and technology to fight Sokar, if he comes."

"It's been the policy of the SGC to free indigenous populations, human or alien, when the opportunity arises, proconsul. It is refreshing you share our views on this subject matter. It is also the policy of the American government to subvert and destabilize the Goa'uld Empire and System Lords."

There were unsaid feelings the ambassador would have to express to the colonel and general and everyone else involved in this from America's side later.

"Finding the Cylons are also a priority," Upland elaborated, "and cooperating with Earth on this endeavor would be mutually beneficial." She produced a small rectangular storage device. "This q-drive contains public records on the Cylon War as well as documentaries. Our current defense posture and extra-Colonial policies have been determined by our nearly four decades long cold war with the Cylons and preparations for their eventual aggression."

Ambassador Faxon reached over and accepted the q-drive. He passed it to an aide who'd risen from her seat. She slipped it into a pocket.

"How would finding the Cylons be mutually beneficial?" Faxon's brows furled and his head cocked slightly. He spoke again before the FID officer could answer. "The Cylons are Colonial enemies. While we would appreciate any intelligence on such an enemy-"

"The Cylons will target Earth and nuke the planet. Kill all of you." Faxon stopped and stared at the ever blunt Commander Cain. "They understand psychological warfare," she paused and shook her head like she was having a memory. "They're very good at it. Destroying an entire planet filled with humans would be demoralizing. They may also threaten it to force us to send ships to protect it."

"You'd be wrong to assume we don't have defenses," O'Neill opined. "And the Cylons would be very wrong, too. We can defend ourselves. And the Asgard wouldn't look too kindly on a hostile race of robots coming in to threaten Earth."

Captain Upland steered the conversation away from such the dire and potentially divisive comments of the commander. "We can also aide you in securing your computer networks. Their SOP is to infect computer systems with worms and viruses to gain control, cause havoc, issue false orders, relay false data… all that."

Faxon put up his hands. "I think we're moving ahead of ourselves. I think for now we should take a break and get something to eat…?" There were nods and looks of agreement and relief from around the table. "I'm going to talk to Washington and see about getting a team sent to Eluuria. I think… no, I'm confident that before you leave back to Eluuria and the Colonies we'll have worked out an agreement for future discussions and a rough draft on how to proceed with relations between the Colonies and the planet Earth."


	18. Chapter 18

**Greece**

**2002**

Daniel pushed up a pair of sunglasses which had been sliding down his nose from the sweat, only to get mud on his face. He held back a benign curse and used his sleeve to wipe his face. Tossing the gloves to the ground he took off the sunglasses, stood at his full height, and stared off into the distance.

The afternoon sun was brilliant and far away he could see the sparkling waters of the Aegean. Soft breezes kicked up from the sea. He had on a pair of khaki cargo pants, a white tank and an unbuttoned blue denim shirt. He looked at the men and women around him and smiled contently.

Except for the mud on his face he was happy. The Mediterranean climate was a welcoming after two weeks on Orban right in the middle of their rainy season. In between the three or four hours-long rainstorms every day the humidity had been stifling. A flood of mud had broken through a small barricade the Orbanians had made over his dig site and covered months of work in mere seconds.

The dig site was about the average size. There were maybe two dozen people of various backgrounds and degrees working either to tediously brush off dirt from artifacts or surveying the land or working with laptops and old records to find other dig sites. A pair off to his right, a good twenty meters away were laboriously using ground penetrating radar devices to determine the extent of the dig site.

Everyone seemed to belong and had a place and then he smacked his lips as he saw the three with earwigs, radios on their belts and pistols concealed under un-tucked shirts. A decade ago he'd have just been out by himself trying to piece together some ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to prove his theory on Egypt and mysterious aliens. It was no longer just Daniel Jackson, Crackpot Loner- as some of his colleagues had called him… were they even colleagues?

Being home on Earth was a welcomed relief. It was down time he knew he'd needed and knew he'd been denying himself for some time. The months in Colonial custody had been a magnificent learning experience- he'd poured through everything they'd given him- but he'd still been a 'guest', subject to their whims and desires.

There was a voice, kind and sweet that yelled out, "Daniel, dear!" from behind.

The young archeologist turned and smiled then swatted at an insect that had landed on his neck. "Catherine. How are you?" A serious looking man was following a few steps behind her. The archeologist had spent enough time around men like him to know he didn't belong, and he was carrying a concealed weapon on his right hip, under a thin jacket.

"Oh, I'm doing just fine, just fine." She grabbed his hand and patted it. Her steps were light and she gingerly maneuvered from one safe spot to another. "You look so happy to be playing in the dirt again." She smiled.

"If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here."

Daniel was incredibly sincere. The obvious was the SGC yet now her contacts in the Greek government had fast tracked the Langford Foundation's request to begin new archeological searches throughout the Aegean.

The man who'd followed her stopped and clasped his hands behind his back. Daniel tried to guess who he was with: NID, CIA, NSA, State, or DOD? Whoever he was his cold, obsidian eyes were already judging Daniel and the others. Daniel could feel and almost see an aura of mistrust, derision, and apathy towards him and his team.

"Yes. Happiness and playing in the dirt aren't going to equip us with the weapons to defend this planet."

Catherine's smile vanished. She looked Daniel in the eye and managed to hold her own from rolling. "Daniel, meet Mr. James Marrick. Mr. Marrick, Doctor Daniel Jackson, the man who deciphered the gate." Marrick shook Daniel's dirty hand, undeterred. "Mr. Marrick is coming over to check on us."

"I'm just making sure our resources are spent wisely, Ms. Langford." He nodded at her.

"Whose resources?" Daniel asked, turning his head slightly.

"The American tax payer's, Dr. Jackson." He walked around. "Nothing is sacrosanct, Dr. Jackson. Your expedition has to meet certain goals." Marrick smiled at him. "So, have you found anything?"

"Well… other than some pottery of possibly Minoan origin…" Marrick scoffed at the archeologist, "then no." Daniel rubbed the side of his nose. "Archeology takes a lot of time. Obviously… Greece is one of the most heavily excavated sites in the world. Since we learned of the Goa'uld we've only found a handful of their technology here and in Egypt… obvious exception, of course. And since nobody has found anything of Kobolian origin yet then it's either hidden _very_ well like the Goa'uld did or-"

"Or it doesn't exist. And we've wasted more money on pointless digs in the mud. But we're funding this expedition based on your briefing, Doctor Jackson," he turned and grinned. "And your reputation, Miss Langford. Is there any proof the ancient Colonial-Kobolians came here?"

Daniel leered at the man. "I'm sorry, who were you with again?"

Marrick ignored him and kicked a small rock close to the pit. Daniel suffocated his annoyance and kept the veneer of a calm, supremely patient man.

"You've been here a month, doctor. But this is using limited resources from the SGC which could be utilized on half a dozen other planets indexed with a high likelihood of Goa'uld or alien artifacts. This DNA evidence and cultural stuff raised a lot of questions in Washington. But those people aren't willing to wait and spend money recklessly to answer questions which might be of little actual value."

"Mr. Marrick…" Catherine wrapped her arm around his and spoke in a soft, grandmotherly voice, "you have to be patient. My foundation has so many people trying to piece together old dialogues and legends and not just from Greece and Plato and Thales, but from another planet a million light years away!" She patted his hand. "All archeology is relevant. It reveals the facts to us! You're looking for what could be mythical ships that may never have made it. Or did and were taken apart-"

"And why would they do that?" Marrick asked.

"Who knows?" Daniel interjected. "For all we know they landed then flew their ships into the sun. People do all sort of stupid things. Or they never came. That's the mystery. That's what's exciting about _archeology_, and that's what we're doing." At this point he was annoyed with Marrick the Interloping Interloper. "It's taken thousands of people hundreds of years to dig up artifacts and piece together the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean. You want something found-"

"You need more resources." Marrick slipped out of Catherine hold and walked closer to the edge of the excavation pit. He was careful to not step too close to the ledge. He looked in. "I hope you understand there are other funding priorities as well?"

"Isn't there a Tok'ra shuttle coming in next week? What about a scan?"

"Unavailable."

"Unavailable?"

"The Tok'ra have lent it to us for exactly four days to use its sensors."

"For what?"

"Classified." Marrick snapped. There was a short pause. The look on the man's face contorted and morphed from apathy and disdain to a smug smirk. "Obviously you have friends in high places. And a lot of pull after you deciphered the gate. So I'll see what I can do with the shuttle… maybe have them, I don't know, scan the area? Could you provide me with specific locations?"

Daniel leered at him. "Yes."

This reeked of a 'you owe me one' and Daniel knew the man would collect. He just oozed slime.

"See, we can work together. Very good. Get us our answers."

Marrick turned around before Daniel could get in another word. Daniel's mouth hung open in slight surprise, exacerbation and annoyance. He didn't like grand standers. He sure as hell didn't like Marrick.

* * *

**Arlington, Virginia**

**2002**

Senator Robert Kinsey cupped his hands within one another and then separated them, eyeing his steaming cup of coffee. Its smell was intoxicating and the warmth was a nice contrast to the chilly and dreary northern Virginia. A light early March snow had fallen the night before. His eyes were narrowed and black as obsidian as he took a sip. His body language shouted at his two guests. His bitterness and ire were directed at the men across from him.

"This is unacceptable," he told them. They sat unblinking. He felt a need to repeat it. "This is completely unacceptable." Kinsey counted the two men lucky. There was a fire stirring inside of him and he was doing his damndest as a gentleman and senator to keep it from coming out and burning them both. "You need to do your jobs and figure this out."

The one of his left kept an even, unflinching face to the hard words. "We don't have access to a gate. Our people inside the SGC have been taken out one by one. Four are facing the death penalty for treason." He tilted his head. "We have to lay low. What more do you want from us, senator?"

"I want to know how we're going to deal with the Colonial threat, gentlemen."

The two men exchanged glances.

"The Colonies are in a relatively sparse area of the galaxy, senator, and Sokar has significant holdings on the periphery of the Traverse. They also haven't expressed a significant interest in Earth, senator," the one on the right answered. He crossed his legs. "And if they had it's likely the Asgard would interdict their vessels before arrival or shortly thereafter."

"They appear to be preoccupied with probing Sokar's defenses and that planet they discovered. They're developing it into a naquadah mining site."

Kinsey scoffed, became silent, and then smacked his desk. The coffee cup jumped and some spilled into the saucer. The two men were still. "The Asgard… the Replicators are their scourge for thinking they had the right to-" his mouth snapped shut "-Earth cannot be dependent on the Asgard or anyone for her defenses. We need weapons. And since you all and Maybourne were so damned sloppy we're not getting any more technology. The Nox act like a bunch of worthless hippies and the Tollan are completely useless. Technology we could use is left in god damned caves for savages. How are we supposed to protect this country when the NID can't run simple operations? God damnit, did you really think O'Neill would turn?"

"No, we can't get more," the right confirmed. His voice was respectful, composed, yet his eyes were anything but and he ignored the last question out of deep rooted spite for the senator. Kinsey was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice. "But we still have a significant amount of technology from before Makepeace was apprehended. Those are being developed and could be quite lucrative."

"Good." Kinsey sucked in a breath. "Then let's see results." He leaned back in his chair, serene in his dominance. "What else?"

"The SGC confirmed that the Enkarans were destroyed by an alien-"

"I really don't care about them."

"The 301 was a failure, sir. Both test pilots died." The left and right again looked at each other. The left one took a CD from his pocket and placed it on the senator's desk.

"So? You're telling me things everyone knows. The recall device." The senator took the disk, held it up and then raised his eyebrows at the two young men. "What's this?"

"The SGC and Hammond have been our main obstacles in procuring technology to fight the Goa'uld and… defending this nation. If it were possible to remove Hammond and install a CO more… understanding of what we need…" he trailed off. "The military initiated a secret investigation of the incident at the request of General Vidrine-"

Kinsey waved. "Vidrine's career is over."

The one on the right nodded. "We still have people on the inside. We're just asking for more time, sir." He swallowed. "And that report is preliminary, but more than one engineer on the project expressed concerns about the uncertainties of Goa'uld technology and reservations about hybrid systems. It's a bit technical."

The senator glared at him.

"Incompetence on the part of the SGC and their Area 51 lackeys? Color me surprised, gentlemen. You get me the information and I'll use it to shut down Hammond, SG1, and all their little sycophants on the other teams and at the Pentagon." He stood up, signaling the end of the conversation. "Do your jobs, gentlemen, get me that information. Hammond's going to be gone and if you do your jobs O'Neill will be going with him."

* * *

**SGC **

**2002**

Two men were walking towards the gate room, each carrying a backpack and a satchel. Each had a gray-brown zat'nik'tel holstered on their waist. Both men had left behind all forms of identification. No dog tags, nothing. There was nothing on them which could link them to Earth, the SGC, or anyone beyond themselves.

Their clothes were simple wool and leather. The one on the left was a civilian, much used to wearing odd clothes, a sign of a past of undercover work. He wore black leather pants and boots, which were muddied and worn. A duster long coat with two gray stripes on the shoulders and faded black wool shirts completed his ensemble.

The second man was military. He kept scratching between his ears and temple, unused to have the long hair which tickled his ears. He had three day old whiskers. He was dressed similarly to the man on his left except with dulled green leather boots and a gray leather vest over worn red wool shirts.

"Major!"

Both stopped and turned around. They sidestepped from where an airman had been following too close and missed by less than half a foot.

"Colonel O'Neill," the major smiled and slipped off his backpack. He let the smile quickly fade when he saw the severe expression on the colonel's face. His eyes were cold and focused.

"Major Telford, Agent Cross." O'Neill nodded at them both. "I-"

"We've got this, colonel," Agent Michael Cross interrupted. The colonel shot him a glare and Cross rubbed his orange-red whiskers.

"I know." O'Neill frowned. "Tuplo was a good man. All those people were good people. I trust both of you to figure out what's happening out there."

"Yes, sir," Telford answered, stiffening, and letting his voice take on a hard tone. "I met Tuplo once, about a year ago." There was a reluctant smile. "He and the Untouched gave us a huge feast. Didn't hold a thing back. He… they were good people, colonel. Whatever happened we'll figure it out."

O'Neill nodded and then gestured towards the gate room. He let Telford and Cross walk a half step in front of him. "I'll see you to the gate." He trusted Telford and knew the man, going back to '92. He'd never run an operation with him before but knew men who had. They vouched for him. He was also a damn fine pilot. Cross… he was NID and supposedly untouched by the treasonous elements, but it still lingered and tainted the division. Somehow they'd maintained a significant amount of political power, which O'Neill had suspected Kinsey of being their backers on the Hill. Still, Cross was good, a little abrasive at time, but O'Neill's CIA contacts confirmed the man was honorable and an excellent agent. They were half a dozen steps closer to the embarkation room before O'Neill spoke again. "The Tok'ra reported more settlements have gone missing. A small Free Jaffa one of a few hundred disappear two weeks ago… who's ever doing this has a lot of resources. And they're bastards." He growled. "Watch yourselves."

The colonel had helped put this mission together for the last six weeks. At first it'd been a little something in between missions. Little reports had been streaming in to the Tok'ra. They asked for the SGC's help to figure it out. Priority hadn't been extremely high. Then the Untouched had been taken and he'd poured night and day into it.

"We understand, colonel," Cross answered for them both. He sucked in a breath. "We appreciate all the training you and SG1 helped us with. We're going to do everything fucking thing we can to find out who killed them and where they went. God help them when we find them." An airman swiped his access card and the blast door to the gate room rumbled open.

"I'm praying their alive," Telford said, "and we won't stop 'till we find 'em or whoever took 'em."

Colonel O'Neill stopped at the embarkation ramp as a technician waving around some sort of scanner stepped back and exited. A few airmen were present, the ever watchful guard on the gate. He looked behind him, over his shoulder and into the control room. General Hammond was watching along with Teal'c. He wished he was going with Telford and Cross. He trusted them both but damnit, he wanted to go.

"Good luck." He shook their hands.

Jacob had his arms folded and glanced up at the sky as some scaly, black and red feathered carrion bird circled over head. A few years ago it might've been some black blur. Now he could see it perfectly, even as it flew a hundred feet in the air. There was a carcass about fifty meters from the gate, giant and torn, like some sort of buffalo, except with black scales. He figured it must've been waiting for him to leave.

His symbiote was working overtime to keep his body cool in the heat of a rocky desert plain and his Tok'ra uniform was starting to stick. The leather-like fabric was exceptional at keeping an individual cool or warm, depending on climate, but it had its limits, as did a symbiote. Everything had limits. His stomach rumbled. The limits of missing breakfast and lunch that day would catch up to him if he didn't eat.

He had time to open his satchel and chew on a high energy bar the Tok'ra made from some sort of gooey paste. Selmak had never revealed what the paste's constituent parts were and he'd never found out. The bars themselves actually tasted quite good, sweet even. They also didn't make the mouth dry like candy bars or energy bars from Earth.

He was early at Selmak's insistence. As Jacob Carter he'd always tried to be somewhere ten minutes early. If he wasn't he was late. Sam had called it 'neurotic' when she was a teenager and always huffed at him in the mornings when he'd come to wake her up 'too early'. Jacob bent his head and laughed. God, what he'd do to be able to keep Sam and Mark safe… he stared at the giant ring before him. He'd often thought of if he could just abandon it all and go back and live a normal life. Selmak had always stayed silent during those thoughts. And he'd always dismissed them.

The gate began initialization sequence to receive an incoming wormhole. The chevrons lit up and the ground shook slightly. The puddle shot out and flew back into a flat event horizon. A small communicator on his belt began beeping. It was indeed the SGC, as he suspected. The planet was a backwater and the gate smack dab in the middle of a dry and hot desert, a perfect spot to meet.

He furled his brow deeply as Agent Cross and Major Telford appeared on the gate platform. Cross immediately swiped at his forehead as beads of sweat instantly materialized on his skin. Jacob went up to greet them as the wind kicked up and he had to shield his eyes from the gray-red dirt swirling around him. He coughed.

"Cross, Telford," he said holding out his hand. Cross's palm was already sweaty and Telford's was soft. "You all ready?"

The senior man in charge nodded. "We're all ready, Jacob. Anything we need to be made aware of before we head to the Land of Light?"

"SG2's there still. Our operatives in the galaxy are still sending information back and we'll have a status update when we get to our shuttle. After that we'll be in radio silence for a week or so. We'll land on a world belonging to the Helos Confederacy and I'll hand you to our local operative." Jacob walked to the DHD and began to slowly dial. "We have an operative in a few of the System Lords' courts. The settlements disappearing are starting to make their rounds…"

"You know anyone who could be doing this?" Telford asked and rested a hand on the DHD, which was still cool despite the blaring red-orange sun. "Would the Goa'uld be doing this?"

Jacob held off punching in the seventh chevron. "No, the Goa'uld conquer and enslave. Abducting people like this isn't in their MO. We thought Nirrti might be behind it but last we checked she was still locked up. I mean, most System Lords are pretty straight forward: conquer and enslave. There's no reason we can think of to take these people."

Agent Cross sighed and let his shoulder droop low before perking back up and gesturing at the gate. "Well then… onto the Land of Light.

* * *

**Earlier…**

The Land of Light was always warm and filled with chirping birds, buzzing insects reminiscent of dragon flies and the sounds of wildlife. It was an endless summer with flowing rivers from far off mountains, greenery and pleasantness. The vast fields of golden wheat waved gently in the breezes and the cobblestone roads leading from the gate to the city were well worn in these parts. There was a small herd of red-haired cattle mooing down the road, untended and roaming free.

This planet had been almost a paradise. Its history was storied and dark yet it had come far and beyond in the last five years since SG1 had visited.

It's people were known to the SGC and allied worlds as brave, kind, strong-willed, and most importantly, caring and empathetic. They were trusting and would treat a stranger in need as well as family. An Untouched could never turn away a man or woman in need.

Yet there were no Untouched. There were no sounds of civilization. Where sickles should have been threshing wheat there was nothing. The singing of hammer to iron on anvil was gone. Where children should have been playing there was nothing but silence. The only sounds were the eerie rustles of leave and wheat in the wind and the distant howls of strange animals and occasional chirps of birds.

Major Louis Ferretti formed his lips into a small 'o' and began to whistle gently as he walked back and forth on the cobblestones, kicking small pebbles off into the drainage ditches. He stopped whistling and swallowed, a chill sweeping over him. He shivered as the chill worked its tendrils down his back and he lowered his head and closed his eyes, making a face.

He glanced down at his watch. He had ten hours to kill until Jacob, Cross, and Telford arrived. He and SG2 had just seen SG5 and SG6 plus some military investigator cops back to the gate and the SGC. Their duty right now was to set up a small outpost within the city and wait for survivors, if there were any, to come back. But searches and UAVs with thermal optics had revealed nothing for a dozen kilometers in any direction.

Death lingered. Ferretti had loved the Land of Light but now he couldn't wait to leave. The planet, the city could have been a picturesque town in the mountains of Italy or Greece, some quaint little tourist trap. Now… he shook his head. He could see the broken top of the Great Forum. Its roof had collapsed in and part of the wall he could see from that distance had collapsed. Many of the columns were broken and the red paint and light brown stone had been charred black.

"Carl!" He shouted to the back of a big dark head sticking out of the wheat fields. He could just barely see the Telford BDUs and helmet. "You done pissing yet? They're waiting back in town!"

"Whaddya think happened here, sir?" Lt. John Casey asked. He was holding onto his M4 awful tight, trying to hide the nervousness behind a casual rocking back and forth on his heels. His bright blue eyes had dulled and wearied over the last week. "Snakes?" They'd come in only a few days before and hadn't had much down time.

Ferretti let a big sigh escape through his nostrils and an eyebrow rose after. "Don't know, Casey. But these were some damned good people. You ever met Tuplo?"

"Uh, no." Casey swallowed and shifted his weight, turning around and looking behind him.

Major Ferretti was nervous, too, but a bit better at hiding it.

"Probably one of the nicest people I've ever met. I came here a few times with SG1. They're an incredibly descent and hospitable people… that something like this could happen. Damned shame. We're gonna have to pay back whoever did this."

"It's still hard seeing stuff like this out here. Makes what you have… God, this just puts things in perspective." Casey was quiet.

"It does."

Casey nodded, closed his eyes and turned. He said a quick and silent prayer for the many thousands of people who were gone. There were bodies and burned carts, dead horses and oxen in the fields and streets, and most of the city had been burning for what had to be days after the fight.

Tuplo's people weren't technologically advanced. They had a radio and a generator but no call for help had come in to the SGC. By the rate of decay on the bodies the attack had come maybe twenty to thirty days ago.

Whoever the attackers were they'd be incredibly precise, eerily so. The main city stood eleven kilometers from the gate in a large and wide valley with gentle hills and deep black soil rich for planting. Most of the population lived in the city or nearby towns and villages in the adjacent valleys and plains. But nothing had been left. No one had been left.

At first they'd feared it was some mysterious illness or biological weapon had killed the Untouched, something from Nirrti or one of her Goa'uld minions. The Tok'ra said she was still a captive of Cronus but Nirrti was a planner and a schemer and no one trusted that a prison would hold her forever. A UAV had been sent with SG1 and SG3 hot on its heels. The first images back had been shocking.

Major Ferretti spied a glimmer in the dirt by the side of the cobblestone rode and bent down to pick it up. It was spent brass, from the mystery attackers. The AF Office of Special Investigations had already determined that conventional and plasma weapons had been used and remembering that, Ferretti let loose a low growl of anger as he stared at the spent casing and rolled it between thumb and forefinger.

The man threw the brass back into the dirt and sighed, then walked over and tapped the lieutenant on the shoulder and Casey opened his eyes to a suspicious frown. "You spacing out on me?"

Casey snorted and was about to reply when Carl Warren yelled out. "Holy shit, there's a survivor!" He was still in the wheat field.

The two men on the cobblestone street stood their ground as Warren came out of the field, helping a young woman, one hand on her shoulder and an arm wrapped around her waist, guiding her. She stumbled and Warren caught her and she managed to get back on her feet. She looked dirty and ragged. Her clothes were torn, her hair disheveled, and dirt was smeared on her face and under her fingernails.

Ferretti quickly snapped into a job and helped the woman, grabbing an arm and helping her sit. He took out his canteen and grabbed a power bar from his pocket. "Are you okay, what happened-" he backed off from the questions. "Here, miss, you're alright. Drink, please."

"Thank you." Her voice was weak.

Casey watched the road and the fields, just in case. She was looking down and the lieutenant could see dimples on her cheeks from a sorrowful smile.

She tried to stand. "Whoa, let us help you," Warren advised, putting a hand on her shoulder and crouching next to her.

"No, please… I need to get back," she begged. The woman stood up and a pair of deep cobalt eyes, glazed yet fiery, pierced into the major. She stood and was easily taller than Ferretti by two inches. Her face convulsed like a wave of pain had thrashed through her and she grabbed her platinum blonde hair and desperately looked towards the major. "Please, I need to get back! My child…!"

Ferretti sighed, his brow creased and he looked off to the city over his shoulder and back at the woman. He needed to get her to the SGC, for medical treatment. She didn't look _too_ bad. The scrapes and bruises on her were healing and while she was thin, she looked alright. He sighed again.

"Alright," he turned around. He pressed his radio's transmit button waited and reported the situation to Lieutenant Sands and the rest of SG2. "Okay…" he turned back around to Casey and Warren. "We're gonna head to the Great Forum and rendezvous with the team. Miss, you sure you're alright?" She nodded and hummed a throaty 'mmhmm.' He turned back around, Casey next to him, Warren behind with the woman.

They took less than a dozen steps. He heard a crack and then Casey was stumbling forward and he fell on his face. Ferretti spun around as a kick made contact with his groin and he doubled over. The last thing he saw was the woman's backhand rushing it to meet his face.

* * *

**Eleven Hours Later**

Colonel O'Neill the rest of SG1, and SG3 and SG4 had come out of the gate quickly, weapons ready, and eyes scanning the surrounding woods. Cross and Telford stood back with Jacob. O'Neill saw they were on edge and rightly so.

The Marines from SG3 had already formed a perimeter. He could hear the faint whir of a propeller from the UAV they'd launched before coming through the gate. The colonel was pissed and angry but now wasn't the time. He stifled his emotions.

"What happened?" He addressed Jacob.

"No idea, Jack." Jacob turned around and looked out from the clearing and road. The Untouched had cleared the area around the gate and extended their roads after the SGC had cured the Touched. Cross and Telford looked grave. "We dialed the gate on schedule. We came through and SG2 wasn't here to meet us and didn't respond to radio. We went to the city and didn't find anyone."

"There were no signs of them or anyone else, colonel," Agent Cross affirmed. "When we didn't find them after about half an hour we came back and dialed up."

O'Neill balled a fist then loosened his hand and let it rest on his M4. Teal'c stood beside him and Carter was ahead and to the right with SG4 coordinating.

"Perhaps the ones responsible for the disappearance and slaughter of the Untouched returned," Teal'c said. He had his staff weapon ready and he kept his head slowly swiveling and searching the surrounding woods. The Jaffa was guarded.

"They come back after almost everyone leaves?" O'Neill growled. "They had a ship in orbit. They had to."

"Then we'd be dealing with a power that's either Goa'uld or's remained hidden from them," Telford added.

"I agree," Jacob said, nodding and then looking up. "I can have a Tok'ra scout ship here in a week-"

"Don't bother. You don't take hostages and linger. They'll know we'll figure it's a ship. God _damnit!_." O'Neill shifted angrily. He could be kidnapped. If some son of a bitch wanted to kidnap him, fine- not really but he could make them hurt for it and bleed them. He hated this sort of thing, hated it. Whoever had taken his people were soldiers. They were murderers. They'd slaughtered thousands of people, a _peaceful_ people and then waited to kidnap the people who'd come to help. He sucked in a breath and let the fire in his eyes smolder a moment. "Cross, Telford, Jacob… SG4'll escort you into the city. Examine what you think you need to, Jacob, and then get the hell outta here and on your mission. Find the bastards who did this."

Jacob was nodding his head slowly. "We'll get 'em, Jack. Don't worry."

* * *

**Area 51**

**2002**

"What about if we connect this to that?" Dr. Bill Lee poked his head around the device and pointed at 'this' and 'that' and picked up a spare cable from the work bench. He held it up and smiled only to be greeted with a terse stare. "Uh… or not…" he whispered.

"If we did that we couldn't integrate the Colonial compensators to the 302's naquadah generators."

Lee frowned and bobbed his head around, looking at the gray half orb with holes and connection ports and back over to the stripped down 302's naquadah generator. "We'd cause a power distribution cascade, right Major Carter?"

Carter nodded and brushed some hair back behind her ear as she chewed on her lip. She looked at him and held back a frown. He was being a little uptight. More than usual. "The Goa'uld one's better, though."

"So let's hook that one up."

"But the Colonial one's easier to make. And we know how to make it." Carter tapped her fingers on the Dell laptop on the side of the bench which had the image of the half orb in a Colonial version of CAD. "We have four 302 prototypes, Bill. So we hook up their compensators to this one. We need to be careful about power regulation and we need to get the hyperspace generators working."

"How much time do we have?"

"Not enough," Carter said with a sigh. "The Galarans are ahead of us and unless we want to lose to their design, we need to step it up." The major put down the small tool she had in her hand and threw her hands on her hips. There was a deep frown which almost hurt.

"Something wrong, major?"

Carter walked forward to the naquadah generator, spun, and walked back to rap her fingers on the workbench. "We're pooling our resources with our off-world allies but not on an interceptor design. The 302 is a damned good design but will it be ready, Bill? The Galaran one doesn't have the range and they're way too similar to Vipers." She rolled her eyes. The Galarans had little contact with the Colonials and only then, it had been through the SGC and on Earth. But the SGC had shared the information the Colonials had provided on third and fourth generation Vipers- three generations behind what was currently being tested. The Galarans had almost fallen in love with the little, nimble, dart-like craft. "We just can't _react_ to the Goa'uld, we have to be able to _strike at them_… problem is the Galarans…"

"They can be a little timid." Lee was nodding.

The major looked over her shoulder and considered him as he tapped his index fingers on the bench and thought. For just a moment she stared at him before turning away and walking to a large black board with artist concepts of what the finished SGC and Galaran fighters would look like.

She cupped her chin and supported her arm with the other across her waist. Bill Lee was a damned good scientist and didn't clash with the military like some of the others, mainly those in anthropology and archeology. He'd come from Skunk Works and had worked on the YF-22. He was a genius in advanced composite materials and physics and had been at the SGC since '97 studying the gate alongside her.

The major rubbed her eyes. "Where is everyone?"

"It's um… three in the morning."

Carter groaned. She was supposed to give a presentation at oh-nine thirty to the 302 design team. The young woman smacked her lips and noticing how cool and dry it was and how her lips were chapping, licked them. Then she cocked her head and stared at the two competing designs.

She twirled around. "I have an idea!"

Bill Lee braced himself. There would be no sleep for him tonight.

* * *

**Galara**

**2002**

Sam nodded and smiled at a trio of Galaran scientists across the reception hall who'd been staring at her for the last thirty-odd seconds. One of them smirked at her and then turned to his colleagues. Eyes darted back and her as they talked mischievously. Her eyes fixated on them a moment. Between the talks and glances they drank champagne and nibbled on cheese and hors d'oeuvres.

"Problem, Sam?" There was a glass of champagne being held out for her.

She took the glass and sipped. "That's the other team. The Galarans were ahead last week when we met to exchange notes. They're acting a bit weird."

"Ah, I've kind of noticed that sometimes. Galarans tend to form cliques and are less inclined to work together under some circumstances."

Carter poked her chin out at the three. "They insisted we work separately and _then_ come together." She softly growled her displeasure. "They think working separately we might think of things which might get dismissed in the name of cooperation." She shrugged. "So, ambassador…" she smiled, "congratulations." She held out her glass and they clanked them in celebration.

He leaned in a little close and she could smell a soft cologne. "Will you ever just call me Joe?" He smiled when she couldn't hold back the impish little smile and turned away. "Ah… please?" Ambassador Joe Faxon made a sad, funny face and did his best to look doe-eyed and let the light from the lanterns glisten off his eyes.

She looked back with half closed eyes, her nose wrinkled and her was cocked to the side, playfully pretending to examine him. He was smartly dressed, with a bespoke dark navy blue suit, white shirt and a gray tie tilting towards black and gold cufflinks. There was an American flag on his lapel.

Carter nodded for him to follow her and the two walked out onto the large balcony overlooking the capitol city of Potsva. The first time she'd been to Galar they'd bragged about their capitol city and had almost dragged her around its many parks, monuments, shopping districts, and theaters to show it off. They loved urban life and greenery. Ordnance decreed green lawns and parks must surround the downtown and central district buildings. An elaborate and technically advanced public transport system whisked people throughout the city. Still they had wide six or eight lane boulevards with trees planted in the median. Galarans also cherished their space… some sort of something in their past they hadn't talked about and which Major Carter hadn't had time to inquire about.

Potsva had been built to celebrate their unity. A little under a century old it had been built at the base of the Green Sided Mountains and near a roaring river and within an hour's drive to the coast. At the reception hall, on a small cliff, one of the river's creeks flowed slowly at the base. Sam could hear the soft babbling of the water and it mixed gently with the live music of the event which was a sort of eclectic jazzy-classical mix.

"Maybe… we'll see…" she frowned and rose to her toes and leaned to the side to see over the ambassador's shoulder a little better. "The Volca seem to be enjoying their time here a lot. A lot."

Ambassador Faxon lingered on her gorgeous eyes and perfect face a moment before turning. "The Volca absolutely love champagne. I took some to Kar'tek on my second visit and don't tell anyone," he lowered his voice, "but I think they only signed this alliance because they want more champagne."

Carter snorted softly and chuckled before taking a sip as she kept a watch on the diminutive, orange-yellow aliens. They were talking with Kalan, the Orbanian deputy Minister of External Affairs. The champagne was pretty good. And it seemed to taste expensive. Give her a beer and a steak and she'd be content. Or in more recent weeks a PBJ or a power bar due to her bad habit of missing meals.

She looked around the room. "Earth, Galarans, Orbanians, Volca, Tok'ra…" she paused as she looked around the reception hall again. Her father wasn't there. She hadn't heard from him in weeks. "And then Free Jaffa and Cimmerians. This is a big accomplishment… Joe."

"So arranging a galactic treaty is what it takes for you to call me Joe?" The light shone on teeth from a wide grin. He grabbed a small cracker with a piece of green colored meant which Sam eyed with vexing suspicion. "A delicacy here," he informed her and bit down. "It's good."

"Uh… sure." She looked down at the champagne and was content with that for the moment. "But um, this, this is a good thing. It's an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud."

Ambassador Faxon sucked in a deep breath. "It is, Sam, it really is. Whenever the president decides to go public we'll have allies standing beside us. And when the Goa'uld come again or the Colonials start flexing their muscles we'll have allies." He ran a hand through his hair. "We all bring something unique to this alliance and we'll all benefit greatly."

"The Goa'uld or the _Colonials_?" She swallowed. Her tone had been suspicious and demanding and she regretted it.

Faxon waved her off. "No, I don't mean it like _that_. I've seen their worlds about a half dozen times and Caprica City is beautiful. Have you ever seen it at night?" She nodded. "They're very much like us. Quite honestly, more than the Galarans or Orbanians." He kept his voice very low. "I've learned one very important thing about them…" he paused for forced drama and Sam's eyebrows rose, "is that they don't play second fiddle to anyone. There's been some concern in the government-"

"Isn't it mostly coming from Kinsey?" She was starting to absorb the colonel's intense dislike of the senator. She'd gone from simply being annoyed with his shortsighted idiocy to genuinely and completely disliking the man. Everything he said in public was good and polished. But in private he was a loathsome, arrogant man. Sam bit her tongue to keep herself from sounding off on her feelings.

"Well, a lot, yeah, yes but not completely. The president wants to work with them, he really does, Sam. But they have a significant amount of advantages over us we can't match even with our allies. The National Security Council's doesn't really want battlestars showing up in orbit or something like that." Faxton was at the balcony and leaned forward on his forearms, gripping the champagne glass a little more tightly. He glanced down over the edge. "We can't keep the SGC a secret forever but until we have to reveal it we, well, we wanna do it on our own terms." He smiled at her. "Even with the impressive and mighty SG1 fighting for us we need big ships and gigantic guns and phasers and ray guns first." He winked.

Sam tilted her head and looked lazily over Potsva. "Maybe we'll have those big ships sooner than ya think."

* * *

**Sarqara, Capitol City of Delmak**

**2002**

"With Sokar there is life! With Sokar there is glory! Obedience without question! Those who swear fealty to their lord and god will be granted power and prestige. There is but one honor in life: service! We are the servants of Sokar! We live and die for him, the Supreme System Lord! Only through him are we strong, only through him are we powerful!"

The Goa'uld Neberatu extended his hands outwards to the crowds and they roared. Hundreds of thousands were assembled in the shadow of the royal palace. Fire pits burned on the perimeter and death gliders soared overhead. Hundreds of them, followed by bombers and troop transports. Two Ha'tak mother ships hung in the background beyond the palace, hovering ominously.

Neberatu clenched a fist in the air. The light shone brilliantly off his gauntlets and armor, a rich red cloak flowed behind him and was caught in the wind majestically, almost to a rhythm. His hologram was projected throughout the streets of the capitol and to every city on Delmak and ship above.

This Goa'uld stood in stark contrast to his pale and reserved overlord. Neberatu was tanned and tall, muscular with a chiseled jaw and strong features, his eyes were golden and seemed to perpetually shine. His hair was a black with hints of white at the temples. A mean scar ran down the right side of his face, from just in front of the ear to the chin. Neberatu was the Voice of the Dominion as well as one of three of Sokar's highest ranking generals.

He looked over the crowd and his eyes shone brilliantly.

Jaffa of the Dashmed Guard were positioned at the perimeters. Their imposing bodies, adorned with armor and rubies and emerald jewels glittered brilliantly abreast of the fire pits. Their unflinching bearing was awed by the masses who dared not approach. Jaffa, humans, aliens, and slaves were all assembled. The tradesmen's stalls had emptied and were cleared. Undesirables were forbidden from attendance. And the dungeons had been cleared; the prisoners' heads were atop blood stained pikes surrounding each fire pit.

Neberatu's voice thundered over the crowd, which hushed on command. He and the other Goa'uld were on a raised platform, high above the crowd. Sokar sat in his throne, flanked by his most elite Necropolis Guard, with their horned helmets and dark crimson armor, a staff weapon clutched in one hand and a zat'nik'tel strapped to their waist.

While his underlings spoke it was Sokar who was supreme. His throne was more brilliant than all that had come before. It was made of rare metals and painted red and black. Metal skulls made its base over which carving and metal figures illustrated the battles he had won.

Goa'uld of the palace of every rank stood on a lower platform.

To the left was a platform of fifty Jaffa warriors, metal chains and collars around their necks. Their feet and arms bound with shackles.

"The false System Lords of this galaxy would see you suffer and bend knee to them before they torture you, enslave your wives, and rape your children! Ba'al… Heru'ur… Cronus… perverse in their pleasures, malevolent in their rule, and spiteful of their subjects… many enemies have fallen to our lord Sokar's mighty war fleets… and many more will follow…" Neberatu grew quiet.

"Sacrifice in this life is rewarded with life eternal in the next. Those who would defy Sokar will be faced with death. Those who come and embrace him will be rewarded." Neberatu raised his chin and turned to two Goa'uld standing near him. "The System Lords Svarog and Kali have pledged their loyalty to our lord!"

Sokar rose and stepped down from his throne. He held his head high. His face was masked under the crimson hood. Only the glow of yellow eyes was visible.

"You will kneel," he commanded. Svarog and Kali obeyed. There was no benevolence in his voice and nothing but fire and hatred in his eyes. His pale skin was ghostly and eerie, his crimson red cloak magnificent. "Those who swear allegiance will be rewarded." He turned to the Jaffa. "Defiance must be punished."

On cue the Necropolis Guard standing watch over the shackled Jaffa turned and their staffs hissed and whined, golden energies coursing through the capacitor crystals. In unison they rapidly fired, bringing down the first row of Jaffa, burning them with plasma, and quickly brought down the second. Bodies fell and piled. The odor of burned flesh reeked as it fell over the crowd and Goa'uld by the soft winds.

The fallen Jaffa had the mark of Svarog and Kali and their defiance had been punished. Twenty-five Jaffa each.

"Rise." He commanded. Svarog and Kali obeyed. Kali hesitated but a second before jolting upright and puffing out her chest.

She and Svarog turned to the crowd, the two exchanging a knowingly look which was ever so brief and too subtle for Sokar to see.

Sokar raised his chin and his eyes glowed silvery-yellow. One eyes closed ever so slightly and a lip twitched up. The power he commanded he could feel coursing through his veins, filling his very essence. His eyes scanned the slaves and aliens and Jaffa. They were his. They would bring him his glory. They existed to serve only him and return him to his rightful place as the Supreme System Lord. He would become the Supreme System Lord. Or they would die trying.

* * *

Kiva opened an eye as her ear ticked to the sound of rapturous shouting far below and far away. She closed the eye and smiled. She could feel the rhythmic breathing of the man beside her through the bed frame and he was fast asleep and she ran a hand down her body. She needed to wash.

She gently slid out of bed and the warm air breeze from the balcony washed over a toned and naked body. Kiva looked over her shoulder as she moved stealthily away from the bed, on the tip of her toes, and grinned. The snake was tired. He'd already been awake for days but when she'd presented herself to him, as a 'gift' from Marteen for the day she'd worked him hard and furiously. Not even a Goa'uld could go without rest after what she could do.

Burying the admitted smug self-satisfaction she reached into a small, hidden compartment in the high heeled sandal she was forced to wear and which she'd discarded in the threshold of the sleeping chambers. On Lucia she'd have been called a slut and whore for what the Goa'uld made her wear. She breathed slowly. Her heart was racing in her chest, she could hear it and could feel the pulsing of blood through her temples. If caught she'd be brutally raped, tortured, and then murdered. Whatever inventive torture they decided for her, Marteen's would be far worse.

Kiva palmed the small device and moved into the great room. Rich couches of reds and blues were lining the walls, thick cushions were on the floor and exotic painting and statues were on the walls and in the corners. The corner of her eye spotted a holographic man talking- Neberatu- but the volcum had been muted by the snake hours before. She crossed quickly.

Death gliders swarmed overhead. Their shrill engine whines were muffled.

Marteen had provided her with the information necessary to carry out her mission; implant a small device within the portable tablet of Karashi. The eight-hundred year old Goa'uld was only of middle rank yet had important duties; communications.

She took the device she'd palmed and placed it on a security reade. For the few heart pounding seconds she held it up there were Goosebumps on her arms and a chill slid down her back. Her eyes were sharp and her hearing focused. If Karashi as much as rustled she had a plan... a bold, dangerous, and very sick plan, but a plan nonetheless.

Kiva walked into the room, her eyebrows pressed into a V as she scanned it quickly. There was a computer terminal, Goa'uld tablet computers, a plush chair, and communications devices. She licked her lips as she carefully took one step forward, heel to toe, heel to toe. The muscles in her thighs and calfs were tense.

Then she beamed an sly grin. The tablet she was looking for was on the chair. She picked it up and deftly opened an access panel with her thumb. She slid the small device in and put it back down exactly as she'd left it. She crept back to the door, looked one more time and then closed it, content everything was perfect-

She heard footsteps. The door shut seconds before Karashi's shadow was visible to her. She heard her name called, the voice a deep baritone.

Kiva threw on a small and rushed over, her breasts bouncing; she called his name seductively and pounced up on the naked Goa'uld, wrapping her legs and arms around him. He stumbled back, momentarily angry, and then fell back on the bed and began to passionately kiss her. She felt his hand between her thighs and their heads were side to side. She forced a moan.

She was a very good assassin. And a much better actress.

* * *

Marteen had been watching Kiva please the Goa'uld. He grunted. "She's very talented," he whispered to himself. He saw the snake's lift his chest and head off the bed, rear back his head, and presumably shout. Kiva finished him off, laid on his chest and kissed him. She left the bed and ran a hand down his chest before quickly dressing in something that left nothing to the imagination.

The Tok'ra sighed, putted around a moment and lingered at his perch, then stuffed the optical in his bag and departed. He'd been watching her from a room in a far away building. She'd insisted. She didn't want him coming to her rescue, telling him she was a 'grown lady.' He laughed at the thought. Yes, she was quite the lady.

He descended a set of grim stairs quickly and stalked through an open-air forum rather rapidly, but not fast enough to grab the any lingering attention. Jaffa stood respectfully as he passed yet none really came to attention. There were so many Goa'uld in the palace if they stopped for each one they'd never be able to finish a single circuit of their patrols.

Jaffa patrols were not his only worry. The outer sections of the palace complex were rigged with security devices, energy shields, and secret passages for Jaffa squads. The Sarqara palace was perhaps the most heavily fortified and guarded palace of all the Goa'uld. The heads of infiltrators from the courts of the enemy System Lords adorned the ramparts.

Yet he had broken though. He had planned to find SG1 but had changed his mission. He had an opportunity few Tok'ra had had.

As he turned corners and ascended and descended stairs and cross atriums he could smell the growing scent of fresh breads and cooking meats which were undoubtedly sprinkled with the finest herbs and doused with the rarest of oils and sauces. There would be a feast to celebrate the new alliance after a gladiator match to thin out the dungeons.

A line of men and women- and some boys and girls- were led away in chains, the ker'lo 'artisans' trailing behind, their perverted smiles painted on their lips and their nasty hands rubbing together to be able to work their 'art' on the slaves. Marteen could slice each one of their necks. Ker'lo were those who selected the sex slaves of the Goa'uld from the markets.

The depravity of the Goa'uld knew no bounds.

He walked through a more desolate section of the palace- the long way back to the main building- which was used for storage of old wines, records, and furniture. He heard a shuffle and turned around. He frowned at nothing.

As he turned his head back he tensed. His senses were tuned and he saw a darkness in the corner of his eye.

"Elal- admiral," he spread his hands slowly and bowed his head. A pair of dark, soothing eyes looked back at him. Marteen could feel the alien's stare, even as he tried not to look it in the face. He was ready, his muscles relaxed, his mind clear. The short, gray and black skinned, lizard-like alien took a step forward, more into the light. Marteen knew its kind were natural predators and this was, had been, their commander, their admiral. "Elal Tarapah, we serve Sokar. What assistance may I provide to you?"

The alien was a slave, but a favorite, a pet. Marteen was a Goa'uld imposter of low rank. He could not disrespect the alien and expect to maintain his cover.

Tarapah's foot flaws were extended and they clicked on the stone. Its eyes glowed.

"Tok'ra." Marteen kept his heart rate steady, his breath even. He made no effort to contest the accusation. A hand moved slowly over its breast plate, to a small inner pocket in the sleeveless red-black robe it wore. "You may need these in the future."

A clawed, scaled hand held a small data pad.

"Why are you helping me?" Marteen cautiously grabbed the pad and tucked it away. He'd examine it later.

The alien clicked and there was a soft hiss. "The rule of the System Lords is coming to an end, Tok'ra."

"You fight for Sokar."

"I fight." Tarapah raised his chin and bored his sharp, glittering teeth. "Be ready. When called." He turned and slid down a side passage.

* * *

**Tok'ra Shuttle**

**2002**

There was a suite of sensors and surveillance equipment available at her fingertips that would have made an NSA analyst salivate with jealously. Ninety-nine percent of the stuff under her control was still science fiction, complete fantasy, to the people back on Earth. And that forced a little smile on her lips she begrudgingly conceded was arrogant.

Arrogance. That was something she was trying to work on and something she'd been trying to stamp out for months now. In many ways she was better than her 'peers', if other second lieutenants could be compared to her in such a way. Not even her professors could have kept up, so how could her fellow cadets? 'Towards a New Cosmology of Multiple Realities' had made its way amongst the physics department at the Air Force Academy and she had little doubt less than half of them understood all the math behind it. And of the fraction who did a fraction of that would have been open-minded enough to understand and accept it.

Of course part of the theory had been wrong. Matter could only travel one way in a wormhole. But really, how the hell was she supposed to know? The paper was right based on the assumption… the assumption. She swallowed.

Arrogance. She needed to cut that out like a malignancy, separate herself from herself. She was her own worse nightmare. The Air Force didn't want loners and people who got into fights. You could be the brightest officer ever but if you couldn't play on the team, by its rules, you were done. Gone. Out of there. After what she'd seen and what Major Carter had shown her she'd sworn to make amends.

A man leaned over from the seat next to her. She tensed. "That's pretty good work, Hailey," he said. He refused to smile. "But you might wanna check these variables again…" he pointed at the laptop. He seemed to sense her frustration. "Don't worry about it… Sam had her own rough patch learning about hyperspace wave generators and naquadah reactors, too." He winked.

"Major Carter's breakthroughs have been very impressive, sir." Hailey responded. She sat a little straighter and fixed her two mistakes which were obvious after exposure. Contemplation knotted her brow as she stared at the computer and tapped on keys. "I've only been able to read a little bit of her work but sir… it's just so amazing."

She wanted to say something else but stopped. Sounding like a sycophant fan girl was worse than an arrogant former cadet.

"First, you can drop the 'sir', I'm not a general anymore. So Jacob's fine. All Tok'ra go by their first name." He coughed. "_Or Selmak. Either one is acceptable."_

Lieutenant Jennifer Hailer considered the Tok'ra for a thoughtful moment and pretended to study the equations on her laptop while covertly watching him out of the corner of her eye. Since learning of the Stargate and the SGC she'd been exposed to wonders beyond her imagination and wonders she still believed were impossible, like sitting in a cloaked Tok'ra shuttle and spying on entire planets. The subterfuge and spying was exhilarating and frightening. She felt more of the former than the later. _This_ was the challenge she'd signed up for when she'd gotten into the Air Force Academy.

"And you're staring, lieutenant."

"Sorry. Um… I was wondering, I mean…" she rubbed the back of her neck, "how…"

"How does it feel to be blended?" Jacob raised his eyebrows and looked over. He tried not to sound irritated. She nodded. "A little strange at first and it takes a while to get used to a new personality always talking…" he chuckled to himself, "and Selmak feels the same and he's so old he's had to get used to a lot of personalities… made him a little cranky. Don't tell him that." He stayed serious at the confused face on the young woman. "It was a joke, lieutenant."

"_Jacob is incorrect. I have not been made 'cranky' by my repeated blending. Jacob only suspects this but I have, at times, been forced to take control of him and slap him."_

"Ah. O…kay…?" Hailey responded, very slowly, eyes darting away and to the side. The idea of General Carter slapping himself because a voice inside his head told him to was a little funny. She had to suppress the urge to laugh and covered her mouth. "Do you…" she giggled, but she was facing away from him, "do you like it?"

Jacob flashed her a gentle smile. "Yes…" there was a beep, "um… hold on. Lieutenant, bring up your sensor screen." Jacob rose out of his seat. "Sam, you wanna get up here for a sec?"

Major Carter walked quickly up from the rear of the tel'tak with a rag wiping down her hands. "Hey dad, what's up?" Hailey started getting out of her seat but Sam waved her off.

"Look at this," her father said, changing the holographic screen on the tel'tak's cockpit. A wave form with numbers and a moving rectangle appeared and after a moment, automatically translated into English. "That looks like an energy signature from a Colonial FTL."

Sam frowned. "Yeah, but there's a bunch of Colonial ships in orbit… they've been sending supplies down to the Eluurians for the past four days." She looked up at the fleet- no other word to describe it- of ships and hummed.

"It seems off, though," Hailey said, pointing at the screen. She increased scanner resolution and cleaned up the data with a Tok'ra program Jacob had been tutoring her on. "It looks Colonial but it isn't. Do you think they detected it?"

"Hmm…" Sam scratched her chin. "No, the energy signature is way too small, almost like it's being… I don't know, dampened somehow. Almost below our detection range. And you're right… it's not Colonial, at least, I don't think so. But that's why we're here. We have to get more data on Colonial ships and their FTLs. Still, it's very odd."

"Some sort of Colonial stealth ship?" Jacob offered.

"That far out, dad? I don't see why they'd have a stealth ship out there. Hold on…" she grabbed the laptop from Hailey and started typing in commands and code. "I don't know, from what I saw their FID is into all the covert stuff. Maybe…"

Jacob smiled at his daughter and the smile lingered, Sam shifted, sensing something, but didn't see her father's pride. He'd rushed back to the SGC after hearing of her possession by some alien computer entity that had, in effect, killed her. He thought a light recon mission into the Traverse would be a good way to ease her back after two weeks of medical leave and two weeks of hour-long session with the base psychiatrist, Colonel Mackenzie.

"Found something?" He asked.

Sam smiled, hit 'enter' with a stab of her index finger, and handed the laptop back. "Now we should get a better idea where it is… huh, nowhere near Colonial patrol routes… above the ecliptic, nearly three hundred million kilometers away. Give or take about ten million…"

Hailey was intrigued. Ten days of sitting and watching the Colonials offload supplies to their new allies was exciting in its own but this was a genuine mystery. While she had plenty of alien television to keep her company, as well as physics which seemed to border on the impossible- a lot to do- she wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to investigate this. A mystery ship! They could set course and investigate… not like the planet was going anywhere.

The young and aspiring adventurer mentally shrugged. She was raising a hand to point to the screen, ready to suggest they set off and investigate, play secret agent, when all hell broke loose on the planet.

Alarms roared in the cockpit and Jacob went into action. Major Carter almost pulled Hailey from the seat and jumped in.

"You seeing this, Sam?" Jacob asked.

Major Carter nodded. "My God, their entire facility was just, it's gone, the whole thing, the naquadah facility we've been monitoring just exploded."

The live images were up on the screen. For months the Colonials had been gradually clearing the jungle or burning it down and building roads and erecting buildings as fast as they could. Hailey maneuvered a little bit to see the damage done; the facility they'd built for the naquadah, a sort of high tech oil refinery-like building spread over acre and acre wasn't even there. There was nothing, just a shallow crater and equipment spread all over. The jungle around the refinery was on fire and thick smoke was quickly covering the area.

"Did the naquadah explode? A mining accident? Wouldn't it destroy half the continent?" She shot off the questions one after the other and was gripping the back of the major's chair with her knuckles turning white. Hailey could feel the adrenaline and her heart racing. Her excitement was tempered by the realization a lot of people were dying down there.

Jacob answered as he began to manipulate the images. "If it was just raw naquadah the explosion wouldn't be too big and it looks like," Jacob ran a quick scan, "that that's what exploded. Their weapons processing facility is in orbit… if it were on the ground the entire continent would have been vaporized."

Dozens of blips began appearing on the holographic sensor screens. The ships in orbit were repositioning. Patrols were being scrambled and the warships began to accelerate into higher orbits. Hailey had watched a drill from two days ago. Colonial response times were impressive. They moved into a higher orbit for more maneuverability.

"What about the FTL signature?" She asked.

"It's still there," Sam confirmed. The sensors were recording everything onto their data disks. Spooks at the mountain would analyze everything down to the smallest detail.

"Should we investigate that?"

Sam's lips puckered out as she thought it over. "If we run an active scan at that strength the Colonials could detect it. We only picked it up on passives. We'd need to get within… thirty to fifty million kilometers to get a better look. But it could be worth it."

"Could be worth it," Jacob agreed. "Amazing coincidence something pops up and minutes later their biggest naquadah mine in a hundred light years explodes. We'll take a look then come back if there's nothing there."

The Tok'ra activated the shuttle engines and accelerated away from the planet at a shallow angle to the ecliptic. Jacob was careful to keep his distance from the battlestars in orbit and the three sat or stood in relative silence as the shuttle crossed through the void and neared its target location. They reached thirty million kilometers and began scanning.

"Hold on," Sam said, holding up a hand to her dad. "I just detected another signature, same general location. It's a subspace com and… hold on… damnit!" The shuttle slowed as it finally reached the approximate center of the 'give or take ten million kilometer' bubble. "There's nothing here... damnit, there's nothing."

The shuttle lingered and ran its scans. Whatever had been there was gone.

* * *

"_Cloaked scout shuttle detected. Reposition."_

"_By your command."_

* * *

**SGC**

**2002**

Jacob, Sam, and Hailey materialized through the event horizon onto the grated platform of the SGC's embarkation/debarkation room. Jacob took a deep breath of the cool and recycled air and smiled up into the control room after eying General Hammond. Sam and Hailey began walking down but Jacob hesitated. He could see a glint in Hammond's eye which told him something was wrong.

His daughter and the lieutenant handed off their weapons to two airmen and some of the equipment they'd brought back was placed on the ground at the end of the ramp.

Jacob rejoined his daughter and looked back up. Hammond was gone. The blast doors opened and Hammond, still looking grave, with O'Neill by his side, walked up to them.

"George…" Jacob's tone was leading and he frowned.

Sam looked at her father to the general and to O'Neill.

"Major, Jacob," the general nodded. "We need to talk. My office." Hailey took her leave and the two followed the general and colonel up into the conference room and Hammond's office. O'Neill looked tired and pissed and Hammond hid his emotion behind an austere emotionless face. The general picked up a letter from his desk. "I'm sorry, major. We got blindsided by this yesterday. I've already talked to Colonel Ross. He'll be accompanying you and Colonel O'Neill to the Capitol."

"The Capitol?" Sam made a face and took the letter. She read it quickly. "Oh… you've got to be shitting me." O'Neill snorted. "Is he serious?"

"As serious as a heart attack," O'Neill quipped. "I got one, too."

"Sam?" Jacob asked. Sam handed him the letter. "_You are hereby commanded to appear and testify be…fore…"_ he started reading, then began mouthing the words. He read the date. "December 9, 2002. Three days from now? What the hell, what the hell is this?"

"Senator Kinsey," O'Neill said. That was explanation enough.

General Hammond sighed and sat down at his desk. "Senator Kinsey has somehow come across a report General Vidrine ordered to investigate the X-301's failure. In it there was testimony of technicians who raised concerns about the inability to properly and safely hybridize our technology with the Goa'uld's." He put his hands flat on his desk.

"It's a damn witch hunt, George. A year after the fact? We've never heard of recall devices installed in death gliders-"

Hammond gave his friend a look. "I know, Jacob. I called General Jumper but his hands are tied. Not even the president can stop the Congress from investigating. It's a secret investigation. They've also subpoenaed all the flight data from the X-301 and all research."

"That'll take… weeks to put together. He wants it in three days?" Sam was already drained. Her face had reddened in anger and the knuckles of her right hand were right from a tight fist. "Kinsey." It was a curse word.

"Kinsey," O'Neill repeated. He made the senator's name sound dirty, filthy. "That rat bastard isn't gonna rest until he either controls the SGC or Goa'uld are bombing our cities. Never learns. I thought Senator Armstrong was on our side?"

General Hammond nodded. "Senator Armstrong's been recovering from a heart attack the last three months."

"Coincidences…" O'Neill rolled his eyes.

"That's not all." The three pairs of eyes widened. "I got off the phone with General Jumper a few minutes before you came back. Kinsey also wants progress reports from Cross and Telford. In person."

"What the… I don't even…" O'Neill stuttered, throwing up his hands. "We haven't heard from them in _months_."

Jacob nodded. "Neither have we. Our operative confirmed meeting them then they fell off the grid." He glowered off to the side at an imagined image of Kinsey. "That's what we figured would happen. If they're successful they might be too deep under cover to-"

"_Unscheduled off-world activation!"_ Walter's voice came in loud and booming through the complex. The four jogged into the gate control room. The iris had been shut and Walter spoke as he watched the screen. "We're not receiving an IDC or any… we're receiving a video transmission, sir."

"Put it up." Hammond ordered.

On the screen a jovial fat man in robes appeared. Even with his smile his expression was grim. He waved. "_Comtraya_!"

* * *

AN: Next up, BSG.


	19. Chapter 19

**Myrmidon Fleet Station**

**In Orbit of Caprica**

* * *

Commander Adama leaned forward and tapped the hidden time display for his comp sheet. He concealed a frown and then leaned back semi-casually in his seat while still maintaining a stiff posture. The light red digits reflected in his glasses in blocky numbering. The Admiral was still speaking. Adama wondered if the new admiral was detail-oriented or just loved to speak. After a few weeks he was leaning towards the latter.

In the last ten days they'd had a combined- he did the mental math- sixty-two hours of meetings and briefings. He'd tried to get to Delphi on Saturday to meet with a broker to talk about putting his house on the market but that'd fallen through. He loved that house, but it was too much and Saul had been pestering him every night when they went over reports while eating diner that he needed a 'bachelor pad' to 'get back in the game.' Saul Tigh. A man older than him. Adama shook his head.

He turned back to the admiral. They'd convened at 0900, took an hour and a half lunch shortly before 1300 and it was pushing 1930. From the corner of his eye he'd been keeping track of a junior officer, a lieutenant, who'd been sipping on a glass of water all afternoon. The young man was biting his lip and had been shifting in his seat, much to the chagrin of his neighboring colleague. Not many people got up and left the conference room when a new full bared admiral was speaking.

Adama swallowed and lazily turned his head back to the podium, running his eyes by the officers present. There were probably thirty colonels and commanders, half a dozen admirals of various sorts, and probably twice that in senior enlisted and other officers all the way up to colonel the back walls.

With an ear tuned from decades of military experience he knew when to listen. The admiral was summing up, finishing the briefing:

"-Goa'uld ships haven't been spotted near our territory yet and we're pushing our picket ships farther than we ever have. Still, with the vastness of space it'll be impossible to cover every approach and our scientists say it'd be impossible to detect one of their mother ships in hyperspace with any of our current generation DRADIS technology. We may only have minutes of warning time if they pop out in front of a planet.

"We can either pull back as some are calling for or figure out just what the frak is out there. The president agrees with the latter; we're heading out.

"The Tok'ra have provided us with rough maps of the territory surrounding the Traverse-" he put up his hands as some officers expressed visual distrust and frustration over the Tok'ra- "and nearby bases belonging to Sokar. We need to know what's there. And we need to know response times.

"Specific orders will be coming out within the next week to ten days. Then you'll know your areas of operation but until then keep drilling your men and putting your people to work on how to fight the snakes. Sixth Fleet is going taking lead, so… That's all. Dismissed."

Everyone stood but not at attention. The admiral was a bit more lax with protocol. He was someone who'd call his ship commanders by their first name and who wasn't much into pomp and ceremony. He was still talking with some of his staff at the front of the table when Adama heard his name called quietly.

"Commander Adama." The commander's right ear flickered at hearing his name.

"Captain Upland." The two shook hands. "I didn't see you earlier. I thought you were in Eluuria." He noticed she'd gotten a tan and there were scrapes and bruises on her face and there was a wrap on her wrist. He didn't ask from what.

She hummed and smiled. "I was. Just got back through the gate this morning then hopped a Raptor over here. It's nice to get back to civilization." The captain looked round with shifty eyes. "I snuck in about an hour ago," she whispered.

"Ah." Adama raised his chin and nodded. "Gate travel."

"If I could be honest it's a little…" she shivered, "not something I really enjoy doing or thinking about. And the planet's cold, really cold. It'd have been nice if they'd picked Picon or Scorpia or something a little warmer. Or put it on Ragnar. But…"

The commander inclined his head and scooped up his comp sheets and paper files and slid them into a plain leather satchel. "It is. I know. It surprised me they chose that one for the gate." She was looking off at something. "Captain?"

She turned back sharply. "Sorry, sir. The gate… I don't know. I know they looked at a couple locations, including Ragnar. But it's too much of a hassle to get to the anchorage. Erberus had facilities already built and it's got a lot of expansion potential. Have you seen it yet?"

"Not on the ground."

Adama swallowed and the conference room faded to be slowly replaced by the desolate tundra and craggy mountains of Erebus. His time on planet had been short, a few hours, but one which haunted his sleep even to this day. The horrors of the Cylon War were magnified in those prison cells, that _laboratory_ he'd found…

"It's impressive, very big," she said with a ghost of a smile, "but at the same time, strange. I wasn't there long but it felt like I was being watched. The whole place… lots of people say it's haunted. Great place for a fraking base to bring in dignitaries, right?" She huffed.

"It's good to see you back, captain. How long will you be here?"

"Don't know but I'm guessing four or five days. Hopefully there'll be enough time for a quick trip to Cap City, maybe even Megira." She winced. "I hate to leave, sir, but I have a briefing on Picon in a few hours and-"

Commander Adama put up a hand. "Good luck captain." They shook again. "I'll see you on Eluuria in a few weeks."

She nodded and left. He turned a second time when his name was called out.

"Commander Adama. Come with me."

The commander nodded quickly. "Of course, Admiral Nagala."

The two walked down a corridor to the admiral's office. The commander was a respectful half-step behind and had little time to think about what the admiral needed him for. Adama and Nagala were only separated by eight years, with Nagala his senior, but the admiral looked bony, thin, like his skin was hanging loose. He had an aged scar on his forehead, back from the war, and bushy black eyebrows. Black hair had long ago given up its fight against age and turned white, which the admiral compensated for by keeping it cut short.

Despite appearance Admiral Kuru Nagala could go the distance. Adama knew the admiral came into his office at oh-dark hundred and didn't leave until the next day. He'd swim in the station's pool every morning, before lunch, and biked in the gym. No one ever saw him sleeping, or really even eating a full meal. He'd hop from battlestar to attackstar to landing bay and meet with his sailors in between jumping from Myrmidon to Caprica, out to Scorpia and Picon, over to Virgon, and then back again for the evening briefings. Commander Miller, one of Adama's old friends, had even escorted the admiral to the Stargate for a quick trip to Eluuria and back again.

They entered his office and the admiral bade him sit. Adama knew a few officers who'd served under the admiral, back before he was an admiral. His command style was relaxed and apparently still was. He'd often sit next to and talk to his subordinates rather than sit behind a desk and dictate and command. He'd offer them water or coffee.

This was the first time in Nagala's office and it was awkward, just due to the time it'd taken for a private one-on-one meeting. He saw pictures of the admiral's dead wife and their three daughters plus his eight grandchildren spread across a bookshelf behind a large, red-black desk. An antique lap was on each side with each glowing a soft yellow. Papers were neatly stacked. A laptop was closed and centered on his desk.

He motioned for Adama to sit in the chair in front of his desk. Nagala walked to the other and kept walking then turned and slid into his own chair, a big, black leather one that came up to his neck, behind his desk.

There was a silence. The ever present hum of a station was the only sound. He wasn't stupid and he wasn't afraid. The admiral had his hands in his lap and was staring at the commander with dark, obsidian eyes, and leaning his head to the right then left.

"Commander Adama…" there was another pause, this one punctuated by the admiral tapping an index finger quietly on his desk, "Commander Adama. Your combat record's impressive. You and Vasic did an amazing job coordinating your defense and attack out there."

"Thank you, sir."

Admiral Nagala nodded curtly. He opened the laptop. "It was a leap of faith trusting the Earthers, one I'm not sure I would have made. I commend you on that.

"There is an issue of _Valkyrie_ and _Gorgon_. You and Commander Vasic are our most experienced commanders dealing with the snakes. While I know you two have a…" his eyes narrowed, "close, professional relationship, at some point I will be giving her her own group."

Adama bit the inside of his lower lip. "She deserves one, sir."

"As it stands now. Only because of what Admiral Corman and Marak did for you…" he leaned forward, "after they put themselves in a situation which cost them their careers. The mentality that was in Sixth Fleet is going to change. That's why you're here. I won't hesitate to fire even my senior commander if he won't accept the changes I'm going to lay out for him."

"With respect, sir-"

"I'm not done, commander. Take this as it is. I have faith in you as an officer and want you here and I'm going to lay out how I'm going to run Sixth. If you can follow, good, excellent. We need leaders who can follow. If not, I know General Agave personally. She has need for senior commander within Jeff-Em War Com, M-5 specifically. It's an excellent position, a three year assignment, and would easily transfer into the senior federal executive services."

Adama remembered the acronym: Joint Fleet-Marine Warfare Assessment and Restructuring Command. It was based on Sagittaron. M-5 was monetary and logistical support. They approved budgets and shifted personnel around.

For some it was a coveted position. For an administrative or supply officer looking to retire and get a pension, but still wanted a few more years. For him, it was a polished turd. No fraking way. The Old Man wanted to huff yet held it back. It was a threat only a moron would consider subtle.

He stifled a swallow as his eyes grew dark. There was a shallow nod directed at Nagala from the commander.

"I know some people are itching for a war, commander. If a war's coming then it has to be justified, it has to be legitimate. Sokar fired the first shot. Okay. I get that. And if he fires at you again I expect you to cut his cock off and shove it down his throat. Then put two in his chest for good measure.

"What I don't expect is for any commander in this fleet to subvert _civilian authority_ again. The operations Sixth was conducting should have been brought before the entire Planetary Defense Council. The operations Sixth were running could have had serious repercussions… what would you have done if an operation had resulted in a shooting match with the Cylons? We have no diplomatic means to defuse tensions. They won't come to the armistice station. Half our damned worlds could be burning by now. We don't have the right to put the people in danger like that." Nagala had changed the inflection and tone of his voice. It was deliberate, slow. "So, commander… I want that made clear."

"It's clear, sir." His voice was hard and absent any emotion.

"Good. Because I need good officers. Do you trust the Tok'ra?"

The commander sucked in a quiet breath. "FID seems to trust 'em, to a degree. Nizsim's help was instrumental in fighting the mother ships, it threw off Rhadmet. The Earthers trust the Tok'ra… to further Tok'ra goals. They'd only help us if it helped them."

Nagala considered that answer for a moment, raised an eyebrow and then nodded his head to the side.

"Rhadmet's been fairly helpful."

"I wouldn't trust him at all."

"Indeed." Nagala smirked and that and chuckled. "No, I don't trust him. But we'll let FID do whatever it is they do." He folded his hands on his desk. "_Valkyrie_, _Gorgon_, and _Argus_ will be escorting Marine elements to Elutjah. The President believes we can be friends with the Eluurians. You'll rendevouz with a few other battlestars and then proceed, independently, into Sokar's territory."

"Without escorts, sir?"

"Correct. The scientists say we can mask our FTL signatures. We're not risking sending four or five ships in… this is a scouting mission. No engagements unless necessary. Major Armorak and Doctor Baltar have developed new sensor packages. She'll be installing them aboard your ship…" Nagala looked at his watch, "and she should be arriving soon. Give her what she needs. The battlestars will test the sensors out once you rendezvous with the others, with the major and doctor gating back to Erebus.

_"_Now, I'll tell you your specific mission, commander_. Valkyrie_'s mission is the most vital. The PDC and Pinnacle agree that Sokar is a clear and present danger. Do you know how long until he wins against the other System Lords?"

"No."

"Neither do we. No one knows. We don't have enough information on the galaxy out there. The Earthers think he might win within two years but that's a guess. The Tok'ra policy is to keep any one Goa'uld from gaining too much power and being unstoppable. The PDC tentatively agrees with the Tok'ra policy, but thinks it's a fraking recipe for disaster long term. Right now our target is Sokar. _Valkyrie_ will go deep into Sokar's territory and deploy stealth Raptors to scout Delmak. We're going to cut the snake's head off."

* * *

Commander Adama was in the back of CIC, away from the command consoles and main duty stations. The CIC on _Valkyrie_ was nowhere near as large as those on the older _Columbia_ class of battlestars, or even the _Cerberus_ class but they were still one of the largest compartments on the battlestar, save the hangers and the FTL core. _Valkyrie_ was still expected to be able to command a fleet if required, like all battlestars.

He was watching with a hawk's eye as Major Amorak and her team of half a dozen techs loaded in a new console. The techs had their tools out and probably three tablets for each man and woman. A chief Adama didn't recognize was running some sort of diagnostic on the command console and his fingers were tapping on the tablet quite vigorously.

"I don't really trust her, Bill."

"Trust or like? Big difference, Allison," he whispered back to Commander Vasic. The major had been rude and sometimes arrogant, but she'd moderated her civilian companion well enough. And she was damned smart and committed and Adama appreciated her hands-on attitude.

Adama took a step back and behind a small console. They were in an isolated corner of CIC, near the damage control station, which was unmanned. Most of CIC was empty. The navigation crew was training in simulators and tactical was with _Gorgon_'s tactical staff under the tutelage of the ships' respective XOs. Adama arched an eyebrow at the thought of Saul Tigh on _Gorgon_. He'd be making their life a living hell. But his XO got results and while a gruff and grumpy old… no… senior officer, he knew when to lay off the XO grit and sit down and teach and mentor. The Fleet was better off with a Saul Tigh and saul Tigh was better off with a Fleet. Adama felt a moment of contentment at the thought of their past, their mutual failures and their mutual success.

He was brought back from idle thoughts by Vasic's response.

"How 'bout both?" Vasic scratched the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and breathed in. "They're gonna be going to tear up my CIC in the next few hours." She was in her duty greens, with sleeves rolled up, hair pulled into a tight bun, and ready to get down and dirty alongside the techs. "We barely have any time to test these new systems. What, a few weeks?"

"If we're lucky. It's an isolated system so if it fails, no monumental, system-wide, havoc-inducing system crashes." He looked over tiredly, yet his cobalt blue eyes were piercing, and he grinned before turning it into a smirk. She pushed him lightly and he looked down at his feet. "She said it'll work. It should help us detect their ships at longer ranges."

"Whatever helps land more missiles on target."

"You know it's not going to end here."

She playfully rolled his eyes. "Why are you always so dramatic? Don't forget the Colonies haven't lost a war."

"Don't forget they almost won."

Vasic sighed heavily and let her shoulders exaggerate the droop. "Frak, Bill… it keeps me up at night. Still." She crossed her arms, almost hugging herself. "We don't know what the hell's out there. We're blind."

"That's why we're mapping it. We're figuring this out." His face hardened. "We do this we might be able to eventually hit Sokar before he can focus on us."

"Before that war ends."

"We'll get it done. We haven't lost a war."

Commander Vasic turned to him and saw his little grin. "Um… what makes you so confident?"

"We're Colonials."

* * *

**Eluuria**

* * *

"Have you tried the ambrosia, Vaniket? It's a hot spiced variety. From Leonis, if I'm not mistaken. Captain Upland sent it over." Emissary Fujet Nakan vo Anlysoch said as he lifted the wine glass up by its stem and gingerly took a sip. "It goes well with the ah…" he frowned, "right, South Slope Tauron beef." The emissary eyed the marshal suspiciously but kept talking. "Cow. It's an exquisite animal. I'm having the Colonials import a herd to the Royal Preserve. This will be the new dish. Perhaps we will treat our soldiers to beef when this war is won."

The emissary jabbed his fork into the large T-bone and cut another piece off quickly. Some blood dripped out. It was a cooked to medium. Emissary Nakan coughed and looked sternly at the marshal. He did not enjoy dining in silence. And he disliked playing host to a quiet guest.

Marshal Chetan put down his fork and knife. "I should be at the front, with respect; the men would do well to see either of us there."

"You're needed here in the capital. You can visit your men next week." He took another bite and chewed slowly. The meal was matched with salad greens from the eastern farms, potatoes grown outside the city, and sweet melon balls dipped in honey and sugar. The emissary, despite being thin, had a hard to please sweet tooth. "There is still plenty of war left."

The military leader considered the emissary, the political and social leader of Eluuria for a moment, his eyes dark, and his thoughts scattered. He cleared his mind with a nod and a drink of the spiced ambrosia. He played with a small melon ball before stabbing it with his fork and slowly lifting it and taking a half-bite. "I was informed that Proconsul Asselo was here with a delegation yesterday."

"Yes. We were finalizing a deal for additional aide. Their companies are eager to sell us equipment."

"How are you going to pay for this equipment?" Chetan rolled the thought around. He licked his lips and swallowed apprehension. "What else do they want? They control our Great Ring and they have warships in orbit. They plan to build a space station and a base on the moon. We can't keep ceding our sovereignty to them. If we rebuild our military in their image we'll be completely dependent on them for our defense."

"Slow down, Vaniket. The Colonials are here. There's thousands of them here already. The people clamor to learn more about them. The people consume everything about them… including their religion." The emissary sighed. "Perhaps it was fate that brought the Colonials here-"

"Fate? That's superstition. There are no gods, emissary, and we shouldn't worship the Colonial gods for the sake of… what, political expedience?" He let his fork clatter onto the china. "You risk alienating the people." The marshal's voice had taken on a hint of anger. "You had guns pointed at them only a few months past."

"Huh." The emissary looked off, eyes unfocused. His head dipped and he ate another piece of the juicy red meat. "So I did. How things change."

"How they change…"

"You can speak your mind. That's why I value your counsel. As does the king." The emissary took a small sip of the spiced ambrosia. It was cooling and the taste was not as pleasant. He wiped his mouth with a silk napkin and tossed it to the side of his plate.

"If you want power there's better ways to do it than this."

"Is that what I want? Or do I want to assure the security and prosperity of the kingdoms for a thousand years? I could always tell the Colonials to leave…well, with all our space battlestars lying around… and it's not like they wouldn't go right to some other nation to get base rights. Or to one of the western islands or south or… or…" He knew the marshal got the point when their eyes met for a brief moment. One shoulder shrugged while the marshal remained calm and stiff.

"We're signing away our country to the Colonials. Every boot that touches our soil is another nail into our coffin." Emissary Nakan opened his mouth, with time seeming to stop. Then he started laughing and pushed himself from the table and then scooted his chair back. The marshal continued, his voice turning sour. "So enlighten me, emissary. What is it? If we refuse them will they annihilate us from orbit?"

"While we could do without the _tone_, marshal, or the melodrama, I will tell you: whatever circumstances brought the Colonials here, they're here. They want certain things. We need certain things. That's why I've given them the naquadah site. That's paying for the equipment."

"You realize it's more than just naquadah? I've read intelligence briefs, watched videos. They can't hide who they are, like you said, there's thousands here. Their society is different. Intensely religious. Over-sexed. Militaristic. They sacrifice live animals. Democratic. Their women are complete equals to their men."

"You don't seem to have a problem working with the woman captain." Nakan folded his arms and looked off, past the paintings on the wall, the marble columns, and out the grand windows into the city. "My family has ruled for centuries. Months ago that all could have ended. I'm going to make sure that possibility never happens again. I would rather answer to a government a million light years away than see this nation crumble under nuclear missiles. And the people aren't going to care. Women and men equal? Why not. Sex? Whatever. We'll make them fat with prosperity and keep their bellies full with exotic food." He poked the large piece of meat still remaining and held it up. "Cow." He sighed. "The people care about stability, jobs and a home. Give them that and you can do anything. I'll give that to them. And the name will live forever."

Marshal Chetan put his hands in his lap. He considered how different the emissary was now, compared to when he'd known him as a young man. The two had been on and off-again friends for decades. How things changed. He mentally sighed and reserved himself, confident his objections would fall on deaf ears and depressed on that fact. He listened:

"Everyone has to understand that they're not going anywhere. You most of all. Your support is required, and your king expects it. The Colonials will make the kingdoms rich. The king's trade delegation is already working to secure technologies which will make us the power brokers on this planet. Our economy is set to go through a massive expansion. All it requires is fifty thousand of their soldiers."

Chetan's head snapped back to the emissary and his eyes settled on his. "It's fifty thousand now? Last week it was twenty. What do they need them…" the marshal's mouth opened slightly and he knocked on the table. "More naquadah."

There was a snapping nod from the old man. His neck cracked. "That's what it comes down to, Vaniket, more naquadah. More precious than oil or uranium to the Colonials. They're going to drive forward, smash the Sirisi lines, and take the naquadah that the Sirisi don't know they have." The emissary waved a finger. "But there's the third site, in the Nerin Republic. That's the richest. I told them I'd engage their shifty-eyed goat fucker of a minister for access. Undoubtedly he will ask for the knees as concession."

The marshal responded with a near silent and throaty hum, boarding on a growl. The Nerin Republic was an old nation with a rich history. It was formed from the union of dozens of smaller cities and regions. They'd always been poor, up until about a hundred some odd years ago, when rich deposits of gold and precious metal and oil and uranium were found. They were the power brokers of the non-aligned movement and the financers of half the world. The Nerinians had shimmied their way into global politics when the Eluurian Kingdom had faced economic and social upheavals. A few years of internal disunion had allowed the Nerinians time to steal away the world.

"We'll just be seen as their puppets. How much of our world are they going to take from us? I can't see our allies standing with us if we keep selling out our world- and bits we don't even own- to them. High Prince Foran-"

"The prince will do as Anlysoch instructs. This is bigger than our planet now." The emissary coughed, looked off and frowned, bouncing his finger off the plate, and then turned back. "I'll be honest. Do I like it? Not completely. We were doing alright until they came. Another twenty, thirty years we might have figured out this whole cold war mess. Who knows? But that's not how the stones were tossed. So we make due. I make due. It's about me making us important to them, enough that they don't step on us."

"This is a dangerous game. You're playing with fire."

"Uh, clichés aside, marshal. Drink with me." He took a sip. "I'll have to send a request to our dear woman-captain for more ambrosia." Nakan's brow furled deeply. "What's wrong. Oh… she reminds you of her, doesn't she?" The marshal closed his eyes.

"Yes… if you'll excuse me, emissary." He wiped his mouth with the fine linen napkins and put it on his plate. "There are fifty thousand soldiers coming. I have accommodations to make."

* * *

"Hurry, go, go, go, go!" Melicia ran faster and leaned in as she took the last corner and her legs burned. Behind her lieutenant Marios Killwater, the new guy in her FID division, was hot on her heels. Chief David Kal brushed by them both for the final sprint and waved a backhand at them, and Melicia pumped her arms and legs to keep up. He was damned fast and she was breathing hard. Senior Chief John Corvinus was a couple arms lengths back behind the group and Ensign Anna Bazinet and Chief Ben Graves were racing up behind Corvinus. "Ahhh!" Killwater had come from behind and beaten her by a meter.

Kal beat her by a good two, three meters and they slowed, coming to a jog by the pyramid court near the main gate. Melicia rounded the bleachers.

They dropped down onto the pyramid court and started doing pushups then rolled over for crunches. Melicia went until she felt her abs burning and couldn't do anymore. She and the others ended around the same time two armored vehicles came rolling by, kicking up dirt from the pavement and rattling the ground.

The compound was a little under a square kilometer and the main base of operations for the Fleet and FID. Two military personnel liners had been converted into special FID mobile intelligence centers- MOBICs, which served as the main facility until something more permanent could be built. Landing pads, prefab barracks and armories were all arrayed around the compound and a large freighter had parked near the southern fence and its massive freight lifts were busy going up and down, graciously allowing overworked and underpaid sailors unload the equipment.

Her shirt was dripping with sweat. It was a black tee with the Colonial phoenix on the left breast, and she wore gray running shorts. She lifted the shirt up from the bottom and wiped the sweat streaming from her forehead and stinging her eyes.

She walked closer to the fence but kept her distance. The sounds of men and women working out in the compound ringed in her ears. There was a small group to her left, just past the main gate, doing combative training and other small groups here and there doing morning PT. A few motivators were decked out in their armor, CUs, ruck sack, rifle, and gas masks and sprinting like Cerberus was nipping their asses. Someone shouted after the motivators that they wanted to have their babies.

"Looks like there's more of 'em, sir." Chief Kal was beside her with a water bottle and gestured with it. He handed it to her and she took a sip, the ice-cold water was a refreshing relief in the heat. She gave it back and he gulped down some. "Damned frakin' protestors. Kinda ungrateful of them if you ask me. We save their asses and now they want us gone."

Ensign Anna Bazinet was next to the chief, toweling off. "Atheists… and a bunch of backward-ass fraks."

Melicia stood silently with her hands on her hips, her hair wet and heavy from the sweat, and her shirt sticking. She hummed an acknowledgement and stepped forward, narrowing her eyes to get a better view of the protestors, and glanced at the ensign from the corner of her eye. Bazinet was the newbie. She was eighteen month graduated from Jupiter Caelestis University in Minos and had completed a fifteen months training course on Picon two months ago. Her heavily bronzed skin, dark eyes, and deep black hair, and the accent meant she was raised on Pentis, a large island in the Eastern Ocean on Gemenon.

She'd grabbed FID attention in college. A double major in strategic studies and inter-Colonial diplomacy, completed in three years, a shining recommendation, and an in-depth analysis of the post-unification Caprican-Tauron bipolar axis that had been published under a pseudonym in _Fleet Weekly_ had earned her a billet in the Directorate.

"They'll figure out change is coming soon enough, Anna," Melicia said, a hard scowl on her face. "Those officers probably haven't seen any women in uniform. It'll take them time to adjust. Don't take it personal." She knew what the young officer was referring to with 'backward-ass fraks.'

"Last time I went out all they did was stare and make rude gestures. One of their generals hit on me."

Chief Kal laughed. "A bragging complaint if I ever heard one." His voice dripped with playful sarcasm.

The captain suppressed her own laugh and shot Kal a look. "Just make sure you don't say anything to offend them." She rocked back on her heels and caught the ensign's eye, and smiled for a response.

Bazinet looked at her and huffed. "I won't, sir. I'll keep my bitching to within the compound when we're on this dirt ball… though if one of them touches me like that again… gods damned fraking royalty." She almost spat the word. "Sorry, Chief."

"I don't give a frak about royalty, Virgon or not. And this ball of dirt isn't so bad, ensign. It's startin' to get interesting out there beyond the fence."

Melicia rubbed the back of her neck. _Gods_. She shook her head and squeezed the back of her neck. It made no fraking sense to her, it just didn't. Everyone was trying to figure it out. They went out and half the time the men wouldn't acknowledge their presence. The senior officers weren't as bad as the more junior ones.

The bitching didn't bother her; she let her team speak openly, as long as it was just her team and her. Melicia had picked Bazinet and Killwater personally, which was a rare concession by command, and only possible due to the strings pulled by Commander Bannon. There were challenges out there that needed new thinking and Bannon had picked her to break the institutional inertia; start small, get a team, and build from there. It was exciting for her to be creating something so new.

"Alright, let's get back-"

Chief Ben Graves came up with a petty officer, carrying a wireless. "Sir, there's a call in for you."

The three had kept their distance but formed a loose crescent between her and the fence.

Melicia took the wireless and opened it. After a few seconds she shut it and handed it back to the petty officer. "_The_ _commander's_ coming."

* * *

"Dr. Rosso, thank you very much," Commander Bannon said, picking up his briefcase and motioning for the door. "Ensign Bazinet will see you to the gate. I need to speak with the captain for a moment."

Doctor David Rosso, an elderly academic with a thin white bear, bald head, and a leathery face with a distracting crooked nose smiled. "Of course, Marc. Captain Upland, this is a wonderful little planet. Hopefully I'll be back soon, I'm sure the Ministry will be quite willing."

He held out a hand and Upland shook it. "The pleasure was mine, doctor."

Commander Bannon turned back to Melicia. They were the last two in the conference room and lingered for a moment.

"Walk with me back to the gate, captain."

The captain saw him suppress a small yawn. His jaw cracked. There were bags under his eyes and there was sweat on his brow, on hers, too. The enviro-system was down for maintenance. Engineers had ripped the guts out of the air compressors and were replacing filters and they couldn't have picked a worse time to do it.

The day had been sunny, humid, without a cloud in the sky, and the meeting had gone on nearly twelve hours. And windows on spaceships didn't open.

The two walked through the umbilical from the landed starship, into a large covered walkway which was devoid of personnel, save Marines on either end.

Bannon stopped at a window. "I see the protestors are still there." Large flood lights shone from watch towers onto a group numbering well into the high hundreds. "I'll be back to meet with Marshal Chetan. But I'd like for you to go over what we discussed today, tomorrow with him. He seems to trust you a great deal."

"I'll talk to him, sir." She stirred and shifted her weight between her feet. "The emissary seems to be more than willing to work with us, so I think he'll come around. Sir… if I may, what are our long-term goals her and how will it affect the Eluurians?"

Bannon turned his head and considered her a silent moment. He looked back out the window. "You like these people." He saw her reflection nod in the window. "The Pinnacle and Cap City are still debating that. The Quorum's split along party-planetary lines. What I know, what I can tell you is that we're not going anywhere. We're here to stay."

"I thought so."

"Not everyone will see our actions like we do or even understand them." He moved away from the window and started walking, slowly. "I joined the military because I believed in the ideals and the freedoms the Colonies represent, and I wanted to defend those gods' given rights for everyone. We all thought we'd be fighting Cylons. End the last threat to humanity. Well. What would you do for the Colonies?"

She snapped her chin up. "Anything." There was no hesitation. Her jaw did tense. This line of questioning was unlike the commander.

"That's good, Melicia. Because we're making history and there's a galaxy waiting for us to make our move." Bannon had turned and stuffed his hand in his pocket and took it out, balled. "You've done good work here. Your team is excellent, and you should be proud of them. But I want you somewhere else for right now. It's one of those… unofficial assignments."

"The kind where-"

"If you're caught, you don't exist to us."

"I understand, sir."

"Good. You attended ACCES, so you should be prepared for this."

Advanced Comparative Evaluation and Survey School, an intense, six month program designed for junior FID officers to make them into field operatives. The school existed under the Solar Exploratory Command which maintained a small fleet of survey vessels.

She felt butterflies in her stomach. And she knew no matter what, she couldn't refuse. She wouldn't. "Any mission, sir, I'll do it."

"Very good." She could see his head turning as he watched something, someone down on the landing pads below. "We're facing some problems we're all uncomfortable with. We'll be breaking some rules here."

She raised an eyebrow. "Sir?"

He had a hand in his pocket.

"The mission. The Tok'ra sent us a message through the gate, asking for a face-to-face, some mission, another planet. Meet the Tok'ra. If you feel it's genuine you're authorized to undertake the mission immediately. There's no secret we were too focused on the Cylons to see what was around us. We're playing catch up, and we'll be breaking our own SOPs to play catch up.

"Looking before you leap has its benefits. We don't do much of that anymore, and it's going to seriously set us back in this galaxy. Events move too fast for us to sit and develop intel sources over years. It's a different pace out there." He stopped, just before the hatch leading to the ship with the Stargate. He took his hand out of his pocket and opened it. "And put these on, major."

* * *

**Kingdom of Eluuria**

**Central Plains, the Isthmus**

**Some Weeks Later…**

* * *

"What kind of fraking shit hole did the gods damned gov send us to now?"

A Marine was holding a video camera, moving through the ranks and recording. "Hey Guzzy, how you feeling? Put on your make-up and all that?"

Corporal Alice 'Guzzy' Kilris made a face and swatted at the camera. She didn't have make up on. She hated wearing makeup and the guys in the squad teased her about it. It was supposed to be 'ironic.' "How 'bout you put the camera down and suck it?" She made to get up, but found her seat too comfortable and fell back down.

"I thought that's what you did." He made a hybridized guzzling/choking sound and rolled his eyes into the back of his head. The cameraman moved off, snickering and came up behind a Marine a good head taller. "You gonna find yourself an exotic husband with a big cock out here, Frank?"

On hearing his name Frank snapped around and cracked a huge smile. "Hey John, only when I'm done ravaging you." He grabbed his cock and gyrated his hips at Corporal John Lotar. "Why the frak you dicking around with that? The El Tee doesn't want this shit. Gods damned Taurons, you don't respect authority."

"Blah blah. This is history, man. She won't know and the officers are over there talking and pretending to know what they're doing," Lotar jabbed his thumb back and lowered the camera. "Frak, Frank, what the hell are we doing here? What's the name of this planet we're here to pillage?"

"Your sister?" Guzzy shouted. Lotar flicked her off and she laughed.

The Marine next to Corporal Frank Muller started laughing. "We're here to conquer, pillage, and frak fine alien pussy. We'll show them from real men from Tauron are like, right?"

Corporal Muller snorted. "The only 'pussy' you're gonna get's from a plastic blow-up doll, Omar."

Lance Corporal Omar Fischer was a Marine who towered over nearly everybody. He was just shy of two meters, muscled with a wrestler's thick neck, and could just about pound anyone in the squad or platoon to pulp if he so chose. Muller by comparison was skinny, almost looked malnourished, and his armor made him look like a kid playing dress up. Being not even twenty and with a patent inability to grow facial hair didn't help him, either.

"I think you'll do!" Ficher wrapped his heavy arms around Muller and pulled him in and dry humped him. "Oh yeah! Give it to me."

"Oh yeah, keep it going!" Guzzy was on her feet, clapping them on. "You getting this John? This is history."

"Oh man, sick! Get off!" Muller wrenched himself feel. "Ugh!" He over exaggerated a shiver. "Gods damnit we've been in this fraking hanger for ten hours. What the asslicking fraking frak are we fraking doing?" He pulled at his armor, wanting to take it off. "Hey sergeant, what's-up?"

Sergeant Jennifer Dimnos sighed and shook her head as she slowly placed her hands on her hips to signal her eternal annoyance at them. Her dirty blonde ponytail wagged, following her head. Her helmet was in her hand and her rifle slung over her shoulder. "Can you guys calm the frak down? The Ellies are watching. You're Colonial Marines. We're here representing the Colonies. We're bringing some gods damned civilization to these people and defending the Colonies. So act like the adult children you are and stop dicking around."

"By invading a planet a billion light years away!" Someone shouted.

"Yeah well you Capricans think they need civilization, quote-unquote," Muller said, wrinkling his nose, "this whole place stinks of something."

"It's diesel, idiot." Guzzy sneered at him. "Sarge. We're here to kill shit, right? But who the hell are these people?"

Sergeant Dimons frowned. The marines from her squad had gathered around. "Since Guzzy is apparently illiterate and can't read her gods damned pamphlet…" Guzzy shook her head and Dimons smiled. "We all had the same briefings on the way over and I don't know anything more than you do. Yeah, we don't know much about them. Yeah, this is a shit hole. But we have orders. The Eluurian Kingdom and their allies are our allies now. These Sirisi assholes shot nukes at our people and no one shoots at Colonial military personnel." She paused and with some 'damn rights' and 'frak these cocksuckers' were said.

"And fraking aliens, too." The Marines turned around to Sergeant Archias Zolos, a twenty-four year old impeccably groomed and with a dignified look about him. He kept his shoulders pressed back and spine straight. "People making the gold cubits told us we need this planet. You all should feel honored; we're the tip of the spear, freeing a galaxy of our fellow man from alien oppressors." There were a few interruptions, laced with curses, most directed at the mysterious Goa'uld, whom some didn't believe really even existed. A 'ha' was thrown out at the notion of freeing the galaxy for their fellow man. "Gear up and get the cocks outta your asses. Lieutenant Stagna wants everyone formed up. We've finally got VTOLs and we're getting ready to deploy north somewhere. Get to it, Marines."

The Marines acknowledge, yelled back some exciting expletives and grabbed their gear. Across the base two battalions of Colonial Marines began to load up. The tip of the spear.

Corporal Muller was next to Guzzy, picking up his ruck sack and standing over her. "You hear about the rumors with the lieutenant? That she fought some fraking aliens on _Valkyrie_? People say she's all kinds of fraked up, like she was in some crazy hospital or something. She say anything?"

"Yeah man, she spilled her heart out to me when we were painting our toe nails and braiding our hair together." She hit Muller in the shoulder. "I don't know what the frak is going on. I've know her as long as she's been our lieutenant. Just over a month." She stepped off. "Let's go."

* * *

Karden Glentan vo Niur watched with an hard scowl and a brooding soul as Colonial Marines double timed from here to there and move out of the way as armored vehicles rolled away and their space ships landed. He was constantly shifting his weight; left, right, let, right. The man's inner conflict was rapidly escalating as he watched more troops come down from space, more armored vehicle roll into hangers, more of _them_ coming _here_. He felt his cheeks flush with anger.

He was a lone figure, standing off in the shade of a hanger. His shoulders rose and then fell as he deeply sighed. His eyes were tired and his eye lids felt like they were being pulled down from twenty-three years of exhaustion and unrelenting military service. His thoughts turned dark when he heard his name called.

"Karden! Karden!"

He saw a man racing up to him at something that was in between a jog and a fast walk. He poked his head forward and squinted.

"Juren!" He grabbed the man's hand and the two shook. "I thought you were at the front?"

Juren Vertan vo Hiur was smiling and shaking his head. His voice was loud, booming. "No, we're heading to the front. We're here for a few more days getting supplies. I hope there's still a fucking fight when we get up there. Sirisi mother fuckers…" he snorted.

"They canceled their elections."

Juren's mouth fell open. "Then we better fucking get to the front before they surrender. The propaganda's right for once? Huh. What're you doing here?"

Karden waved at the Colonials. "The marshal sent me here. To liaise." Juren rolled his eyes.

Juren stepped in front of his friend and grabbed his shoulders. "And look at you. Do I salute now? A damned group captain and Chief of Staff to the damned marshal of everything!" He gripped his friend tight, nodded and let go.

"You're not doing bad yourself, executor." Karden pointed at the gray and black sunburst on his chest, with two parallel rods through the center, vertical to the ground. "You're commanding a battalion. That's a great honor... I wish I was heading north…" He looked at his friend with a smile. "It's been too long."

"A damned year. I called you a few times. You know phones work both ways, right?"

Karden started to laugh. "I know. I've been a bad friend."

"Bullshit." Juren was scratching at his neck. "Never. The wife and kids were asking about you the other day. I was telling them stories on the phone. You should visit them. They ask me when 'uncle K' is coming."

Karden looked over and saw a dark black blotch of a rash. He didn't get a good look, and it was small, but looked nasty. "You okay?"

Juren smiled. "Yeah. Damned bugs outside Gour. That's where we were. The damn Nolk-Nolks are causing trouble in the south. You know they hit a few of our towns down there? I don't know what's up with them, but they've been raiding the border a lot the last year or so. But anyway, with the war on we were sent up here. Nice country. It's too bad we have to see it like this." He used his chin to point at the Colonials. "They're going to save us and destroy us. You know this, don't you?"

Karden swallowed. "They're here to help us. We're friends. The king said so."

"The _emissary_ said so. If gods existed our king would be well and his brother would be silent and in the southern jungles, ruling Gour, far away from us. The people don't like the emissary, Karden. He's slime. I'd do anything for the king, but for him… he's a two-piece slime ball." Juren held up a hand. "So how many now? Fifty thousand. And then fifty more thousand. And fifty more and fifty more. Soon the kingdoms will be theirs and this planet will raise the Phoenix Flag and bend knee to their imaginary friends on an imaginary mountain."

They both crossed their arms and stood in silence. A Colonial armored vehicle drove by, almost silently. It had eight large wheels and a small turret with a canon Karden estimated at a hundred double mils. There were missile countermeasure canisters on the turret and body. There was a remote operated machine gun up top and other little devices he could only guess their function.

"You know I'm right, Karden. What are they mining in the south? I saw their mining vehicles when we were coming north. They've completely rip up part of the jungle. They have trucks and bulldozers and diggers everywhere. It's like the jungle didn't even exist. They're burning and cutting. What are they doing?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Naquadah."

The group captain's heart skipped a beat. He had to consciously force himself to breath. He stepped between Juren and the hangers. "How did you know that? Juren, how the hell did you know that?" He raised his voice.

"Calm down, please…?" The executor raised his eyebrows, held his breath and waited by counting to five. When his friend nodded he sucked in a breath and sighed. He wiped a bead of sweet trickling down his temple. "I know because our emissary is making enemies. The marshal, as good a man as he is, just takes his orders-"

"We're soldiers. That's what we do. We _follow our fucking orders_. And we don't go digging into classified programs. This is reportable."

Karden almost wanted to punch his friend for the damned look the man was giving him.

"Karden, please." Juren's hands were up, palms out. "If the Great Ring had been in Sirisi hands it'd be Colonial tanks heading south, not north. They'd be invading us. We have absolutely nothing in common with them other than… I don't know." He shrugged. "I heard a temple to their gods opened in Anlysoch. It caused rioting."

"That was a rumor Juren. There was no temple." The group captain pinched the bridge of his nose. Juren looked momentarily distraught. "What?"

There was a rant coming. Karden could sense it with how Juren was licking his lips and frowning, playing with his hands an shifting his weight from left to right and back again:

"This world is getting all sorts of fucked up. We need to turn it right-side back. You know… I mean, we all know, the emissary… he's sold us out. Didn't you see the contempt on their faces when the emissary announced the friendship after the missile attack? How smug that commander woman was? What did she say… that the Colonies were the 'light of civilization' bullshit?" He groaned out his frustration. "What do you think they're going to do with our world?"

"What do you mean?"

"They're going to remake us in their image. Believe it. They'll be temples, we'll be eating their food, drinking their ambrosia… cultural, it's a cultural conquest. And they'll use our world to hit at the Goa'uld… so if the Goa'uld follow them… see? Look. Where's the Great Ring? Where is it? They took it. Our most prized possession and they took it. We fought wars over it and we gave it to them! Fuck, your son died in the war! He was a baby! How can you not-!"

Karden's eyes grew bitter and angry. He grabbed his friend and pushed him against the hanger. "Don't you fucking dare!" He closed his eyes and used his free hand to brace himself on the hanger. "I'm sorry." The captain let him friend go.

Juren squeezed Karden's shoulder. "I'm sorry, too. I am. Think of all the blood we've shed together, only to have everything we knew disappear in a single evening. I'm not alone thinking this. There's others out there thinking the same thing. They don't have our best interests at heart just… just don't get mad… just look. Keep an ear to the ground. Just listen. Watch how they treat us. You were there in the room when Cain gave her ultimatum… true, right, about dying and giving them the Ring?" Karden nodded. Juren clapped his hands together. "I knew it. The rumors were true for once. See! The first thing they did was threaten us!"

"That was…" Karden found he was at a loss for words. He was shaking his head. He knew he should've confirmed his friend' suspicion. "We didn't have a choice. Either we gave it to them or they'd let us die. She…" Karden grew pale. "They think they'll live forever after death… they hd no fear of dying Juren… you, you didn't _see_ it, you didn't _hear_ her."

"We'll get through this. We're strong. We just need help."

* * *

**Tok'ra Scout Shuttle**

**Some Time Later**

* * *

Major Upland had finished tying her hair into a tight, braided ponytail when she bounced her hands off her knees and decided to go find Malek. She found the Tok'ra sitting cross-legged in the tiny cargo hold, the lights dimmed and her lips pressed together as she frowned. Meditation meant he'd sit quiet for hours. Every day for the last couple of weeks he'd take a few hours and go back to the cargo hold and just sit there. She couldn't see how it wouldn't be _incredibly_ boring. Meditation was big in some circles back on the Colonies, hell, she remembered her mom 'meditating', but it wasn't for her. No. Boring as watching grass grow.

Though on a second thought, she considered that he might be having a riveting conversation with himself.

Melicia bit her lower lip and looked away. There was a little snigger at that idea. Only a Tok'ra could sit and talk to himself for hours and not be a fraking crackpot.

She sat down on a crate and looked at him and debated whether to leave or stay. The Tok'ra had a presence and she'd seen him always stay cool and calm, collected and also secretive. They'd talked. But his words were guarded and selected with care. She'd use every trick, well, almost every trick she knew and honed in her youth to get him to open up to her.

She still didn't know if Malek was the name of the host or the Tok'ra.

The major folded her arms, canting her head to the side. In some ways she'd begun to envy the Tok'ra. The hosts lived for hundreds of years in near perfect health until the last months of life. They shared the knowledge of a many thousands-year old being and the adventures and life they lived was one of wonder. Spectacular-

"You should prepare." He advised, surprising her. "There are many people on this world and you will need to be ready."

"I am." She frowned. That sounded a little defensive. "Are there aliens?" She asked quickly.

Malek raised an eyebrow in response. He was an alien, obviously, duh, she thought, but again, not really alien.

"There are many non-human species."

"A lot?"

"Not as many as there once were. I assume you can defend yourself."

"Of course I can." She frowned at him angrily.

"That's good." He rose. "Have you ever killed someone?" He didn't wait for her to answer. "Put these on. Your uniform would raise unwanted suspicion." Male threw her a set of clothes and then took off his shirt and put another one on. He slipped off his pants to start changing out of his Tok'ra uniform.

Melicia inspected the clothes, they were mostly leather. With Malek standing there she slipped off her tank top and kicked off her boots. After a moment she was in her underwear. She was looking down and bent over, her dent tags hanging off her neck, and saw Malek glance at her quickly. The Tok'ra was giving her a looksie as he changed but she didn't grin. She'd mastered the ability to look without looking and eavesdrop without being obvious.

"Who're we meeting?" She asked as she slipped on the brown and black leather pants. She buttoned the crouch and slipped a belt on. "You were gonna tell me why you wanted a Colonial. And why me." She faced him with her bra on and shirt in her hand. "What about the Goa'uld on this world?" Melicia took her dent tags off and put them in the crate with her uniform.

"You people ask a lot of question." He cocked his head in answer to a raised eyebrow. "This world is on the edge of Cronus's territory. It's a…" he frowned, "I think you would call it a 'refugee' world. Kallana. The city we are going to is Nerrana. I advise going armed."

"Armed? Is that a good idea, what if we get caught by the police?"

Malek was walking towards the cockpit and stopped in the hatch. "These planets aren't like your Colonies. The galaxy is a dark and dangerous place, Melicia. Police are not police. Government isn't… what do you call it… 'Servants of the people'? They're thugs and mercenaries. Who we're meeting, we're meeting Nizsim in the forum markets."

"You still haven't told me what he wanted." She was following him.

"No idea. Whatever it was, he needed to say it in person. Too important, can't risk interception, eavesdropping." Malek slowly lowered himself into the pilot's chair. "We're coming up on the planet."

* * *

Melicia trudged through the city, made sure to stick close to Malek, and kept her head down but eyes scanning as she dodged pedestrians, mean looking Jaffa, and murderous looking mercenaries. It was like a damned melting pot of the galaxy's degenerates and forlorn. She witnessed no less than a robbery and three assaults within thirty minutes and in broad daylight!

When she'd walked by an alley she swore the man slumped against the wall was dead.

When they'd flown in under the concealment of a Tok'ra cloak they'd skimmed the outlying sections of the city. There was a spaceport, busy and crowded, but they'd landed kilometers outside the make-shift walls. It was a semi-aid continent, with patches of green, lots of shrub brush and short grass, and some trees around the city. She'd seen large above ground gray pipes, most likely some sort of water supply, and roads leading out from the city towards mountains far in the west. The Stargate was heavily guarded, with many entering, but few leaving. They'd taken a taxi-cart into the city before disembarking, paying with a piece of gold.

The city was sprawling, and packed, easily the size of Cap City with its suburbs, but not as populated. What had once been towering skyscrapers had fallen or were in disrepair. On the northern reaches was an ancient city and the signs of bombardment and pattern of rubble had made it obvious. The survivors and residents of the new city had scavenged what they could and rebuilt.

There were pyramids and ziggurats to dozens of different human, Jaffa, and alien gods, all around the new and makeshift city, with no rhyme or reason to their placement. Stone obelisks of every color rose into the sky. Large gate houses were all over. There were walls guarding certain sections of the cities. Temples were well-maintained, often with gardens and trees in the front and guarded fountains. Beggars were on the steps.

Buildings were of every size and shape, from metal shacks to mud brick to steel, one floor up to ten or twenty. Streets were either dirt, pebbled, or paved, seeming to change at random. Cars shared the road with scooters and horses and strange beasts that looked like some sort of massive cow people rode or used to pull carts. Everything was packed in close. Alleys were dark, long, and narrow, often with pools of brackish water and trash overflowing into the streets. Children ran around barefoot, with tattered clothes and animal shit in the streets. One street would be wretched and the next could be clean. Some streets were gated off and had guards with exotic weaponry.

She touched Malek's arm and he slowed. "How do people live like this?"

"As best they can."

The major looked concerned, but that simple statement had a resounding and poignant truth in it no other answer could provide. 'As best they can.' That's how the galaxy got on. They got on the best they could and tried to live their own lives in the face of such unspeakable horror and depravity and violence. As she watched and observed, there was a strange order. But still, and by the Gods, if the people of the Colonies saw this… what they took for granted…

She almost jumped when she the most alien-looking alien barged to a stop in front of her, materializing from a merchant's stall. It stopped in front of her and canted its head. It was tall, easily two heads taller than her, and thin and wiry but it looked powerful and quick. It was some sort of insect-like creature, with a hard exoskeleton. It had four arms, the larger two with three large finger-claws. Two arms were in its chest and twitched. Maybe they were vestigial? It had small tentacle-like things on its mouth. She looked it in the eyes, they were a deep yellow and it looked sad. It was holding a dead animal in its hand-claw.

Even as it looked like something out of a nightmare, she wasn't afraid.

"Melicia." Malek was back with her. "We should go."

"What was that?"

Malek looked behind her. She could feel the alien creature staring back at her. The Tok'ra wrapped an arm around her shoulder and moved her forward. "It's trouble. Let's go."

"We need people in the Colonies to see this."

There was no answer from the Tok'ra.

They walked for only a few more minutes. The smells began to grow bold and delicious and unusual. It smelled of cooked meats, strange spices, and she could hear the buzz of music, laughter, and dance. She and Malek entered a market.

If the other alien was strange, the ones she saw now were baffling. There were orange reptile-looking aliens and others with strange spiked tendrils for hair, with large, gray eyes and two spikes on their chin. There were two others which looked ferocious. They were over two meters tall and looked like walking cats with paw-hands and sharp teeth. They each wore scale armor of some type on their chest and legs and flowing green-purple striped cloaks. A trio of even more remarkable three legged aliens, with two large arms and four smaller arms, scales and toothed beaks walked by. Their scales were blue and shifted colors in the light.

The market square could have easily rivaled anything in the Colonies. There were obelisks, statues, and fountains. There was greenery and trees and the fountains were ready for the public to dance and bathe in. It was an oasis of happiness within the city. The people and aliens seemed to be of a completely different mentality. The forlorn hopelessness she felt radiate from so many walking to the square had disappeared, like an invisible divide mutated apathy and dejection into joy. There was dancing and smiles. A large group of Jaffa were huddled around a platform with an acting troupe re-enacting some sort of battle with swords and spears.

"Nizsim said he'd be there…" Malek jumped on a bench and looked around, finding his bearings. "He has an apartment down there. It shouldn't take long. Whatever he found, he said we could transport it quickly."

The major was looking up at him. "Is there anything else?" Malek looked down and shook his head. Mentally sighing at the Tok'ra, and their inability to share information, she shrugged it off- no point in making it an issue here and now- and jumped onto the bench, but she couldn't see the alley or side street he had seen. Another of those three-legged aliens trotted by and snapped its beak at her.

They walked slowly down an alley and then turned onto a side street and a second alley. There were a few people around and they had to turn sideways to keep from bumping into others. Most averted their eyes, wanting no trouble, and minded their own business.

Malek saw something, whatever it was Melicia wasn't sure, which alerted him to Nizsim's residence. He said they were there and pressed down on the latch. No go. Locked. He jingled the handle again, formed a scowl, looked over his shoulder, and then pressed down and pushed, breaking the door free of the lock.

Melicia had to admit, being that strong would be pretty fraking sweet.

They entered as silent as they could. It was an apartment building, so there were other noises and tenants and they didn't want to alert anyone. But the red hand stain on the wall leading to the stairs, and the streaks of blood on the banister set off alarms. Melicia and Malek both drew their weapons and went to hand signals. They crept up the stairs and up to the third floor.

At Nizsim's door there was a small pool of blood under the door crack, with more of the crimson on the door handle and the brown door itself. The Tok'ra took his index finger and put it on the blood. It was fresh. In his right hand was his energy pistol, something looking like a hybrid between a Goa'uld zat and a Colonial pistol. He broke the door lock with a quick push.

Melicia had a pistol ready. Her training took over and she scanned the room, never letting her eyes linger, but observing everything.

Nizsim was on the ground, bloodied and broken. There were bullet holes in his stomach. The two quickly secured the modest apartment, with Melicia staying in the front and Malek walking into the kitchen and back, into the bedroom. The apartment was small, with the living room up front, a small kitchen and then a bedroom, all in one line. The major could even see the ruffled bed in the back. There was something on the kitchen table, but a cloth covered it. Melicia was kneeling over Nizsim when Malek returned.

He gasped. His eyes opened and he smiled. "Captain… it's good… Malek."

Malek stepped over Nizsim and went to his knees. He raised the Tok'ra up and Nizsim's back was on Malek's knees, his head cradled in the Tok'ra lap. "We'll get you out of here, my friend." He looked at Melicia and shook his head. "What was it you needed to tell us? What did you need to tell the Colonials?"

"Fer'tak… they took him… destroyed my ship… spaceport…" Nizsim breathed heavily. "We found… we fou…." He coughed up blood onto Malek's hands but was able to point towards the kitchen, the refrigerator. "Machines… took proof."

His eyes flashed and he was dead. Malek closed his eyes and laid the body down. He turned the neck on the side and pulled out a knife. He shoved it into the back of the Tok'ra's neck.

Melicia remembered the Jaffa. Fer'tak had been his co-pilot and co-conspirator in sabotaging the _Ha'tak_.

"We can't help him. Goa'uld technology can revive someone… it's the only way to be sure." Malek explained. "I'll get the door. Check the kitchen."

Major Upland swallowed and stood up. Her joints cracked and she balled her hand and she'd taken out a small video recorder, about the size of a credit card and had it on as she walked. She put the pistol into a concealed holster on the small of her back. "He said something about the kitchen."

She was eying the covered object on the table. The cloth was large and covering it- whatever it was- and something else, something that was about half the size of a deck of cards.

Malek walked by and searched. He stopped at the refrigerator and bit his lower lip, hesitating a moment. Then he opened it. "Melicia. Melicia… take a look at this. It looks like it was cut. Why the hell would Nizsim do that?" He reached in and wrapped his fingers around what he found.

The major felt her stomach churn. Malek was holding a severed hand. It was blue and black and it fraking stank something fierce. She winced at the smell… then she looked at the cloth and it looked like it was covering a head. A fraking head… she reached up and pulled it back. "What… the… frak…"

It took a second. But her eyes shot to the right at the deck-sized object. It was an octagon, with a multi-faced, rounded core in the middle, connected to the outer octagon. A computer chip. She looked at both. There was a severed head on the table but it didn't have vessels and tendons and muscles coming out. It had wires and servos.

Malek shut the refrigerator, with the hand tossed onto the table. "What is that?"

It was... the red optical groove, the grill, the small fin… but it was wrong. It was sleek, the groove was slanted into a slight V, and the grill was thinner and longer. The coloring was dim and dull gray, with blotches of black.

The answer was quit, almost whispered. "A Cylon…" She swallowed. Melicia was able to crack a very small, nervous smile. "The head of a Cylon… and its MCP." She recorded it with her camera and then touched it, her hand slowly moving out. "I've never seen a Cylon outside a museum."

The Tok'ra was by her side. "How did it get out here? We're half way across the galaxy from the Traverse."

"We need to get back to the Colonies. Right now. I'll take the MCP."

Malek nodded. "We need to-" his head spun towards the door and he brought his pistol up. The door was pushed open. "Fer'tak?"

Melicia saw the Jaffa, unmistakable it was Fer'tak, standing in the doorway. She'd recognize any of the Jaffa they'd debriefed on _Valkyrie _or captured from _Herikropolis_. His shirt was bloodied. His eyes were wide. And there was a black rash on the side of his neck, looking almost like oil had been splashed on. The major knew everything was just wrong. So wrong. She put the camera away with her left hand while slowly reaching for her pistol with the right. She and Malek were staring right at Fer'tak. No one blinked.

The set-up of the apartment allowed him to see the table. The Jaffa's eyes drifted slowly from the Tok'ra and Colonial to the mechanical head. His own head was cocked to the left. He looked away and the corner of his mouth rose into a sinister smirk.

Melicia's heart pounded in her chest. This was it and as Melicia wrapped his fingers around her pistol Fer'tak opened fire.

The major sidestepped back behind the wall but Fer'tak's weapon carved into the wood and drywall. She ducked down and closed her eyes as dust and particulates got into them. Melicia leaned and fired her pistol, hitting Fer'tak in the leg. Malek fired and grazed him on the stomach, tearing a chunk of shirt and flesh out. His plasma bolt bore into the wall behind the Jaffa, littering the floor with plaster and brick. Her head swiveled back to the table. The MCP was there and she needed to get it.

With a hole in his leg Fer'tak still took a step into the apartment, firing at her and Malek, forcing them down. Red-orange energy bolts from the pistol was tearing the wall to pieces. Bolts went right through, not even slowing down. The table was shattered, the head and MCP lost in a cloud of splinters and pulp. She and Malek exchanged a look. He went low and she went high. Malek hit him in the knee, blowing out the kneecap and sending the silent Jaffa down. He landed hard and braced himself with one hand and continued to fire and fire. A blast skimmed Malek's bicep and he reeled back in pain, the distorted voice shouting. Malek fired blindly from behind cover, his shots going wide and high.

Melicia fired twice, not aiming, missed both shots- high- and then fired a third time, hitting the Jaffa in the shoulder of his supporting arm. He dropped to an elbow and seemed to crawl forward, shooting at her and Malek, unsure which to focus on.

Cabinets were shattered, a few slightly burning. A light fixture had fallen. The kitchen was riddled with holes, fire, smoke, and water was gushing out of the sink's melted pipes. The Cylon head was on the floor, an energy shot straight through, center helmet, above the optical strip. Wood chips were flying everywhere and metal was melting under the Jaffa's unrelenting barrage, falling in Melicia's hair and around her body. A splinter grazed her cheek and cut it. Fer'tak was on his knees, slowly moving forward.

Fer'tak's pistol was glowing red hot. Melicia shot twice more, aiming and squeezing slowly. One shot hit the Jaffa in the chest, to the right of the heart. A second shot hit him under the right eye. He fell that moment, left cheek laying on Nizsim's stomach, destroyed and bloodied hole of an eye socket staring at Melicia.

It took a moment. "What the frak was that! Are you okay?" Melicia was on a knee. She slid her magazine out and reloaded her pistol. Malek gave her a thumbs-up, something he'd learned from her while guarding his arm. He was already tying a bandage he'd rip from his shirt around the wound. She checked Fer'tak cautiously, keeping her pistol on him and taking his. "Malek… have you seen anything like this?" She reached into a pocket and grabbed her recorder. "Look."

Malek, again next to her, rolled Fer'tak over. The oil-like rash was moving, through his veins and arteries, and disappearing.

"I have no idea what the hell that is."

"We need to get that MCP." She rose up and was in the kitchen. "Where the frak is it?"

"Melicia…" Malek was by the door, leaning, and he put his head out. "We have to go… now!"

She heard a commotion in the stairwell. "I need the MCP!" Where the frak was it? She was searching. It was the answer… whatever the question was it was the answer… she looked at the refrigerator. Was she really going to take a severed hand? Yes.

Before she got there Malek grabbed her arm and pulled her back, away from the refrigerator. His grip was so tight it hurt and she couldn't escape his grip. "It's there!" She saw the meta cognitive processor.

"The bedroom!" Malek was back stepping when a figure appeared. A woman. The dim light sparkled on her silvery-white hair. He saw a gun in her hand and he fired, driving her back. Plasma bolts exploded the wall behind the attackers. He kept firing, blasting apart everything he could.

Melicia had her chance. She went for the MCP. But something was thrown into the room.

Malek grabbed her around the chest, threw her into the bedroom, and slammed the door as a flash bomb exploded. Smoke waffled in under the door crack.

"Gods damnit!"

"Out the window!" Malek broke it was a kick. "Get to the tel'tak!"

Energy blasts were starting to tear that room apart, too. The Tok'ra effortlessly flipped the bed as a barrier, but it did little. Fist sized holes of plasma shots were destroying the walls and pulping the mattress and splintering the door. He stuck his gun through one and fired, pulling the trigger as fast as he could.

Melicia had no choice. She checked the alley. It was clear. She grabbed the ledge and hung out, trying to get as close to the ground as she could and she swallowed, hesitating a split second, knowing how bad this would hurt… she dropped.

She landed, bent her knees, and rolled.

She yelped and angrily cursed the gods and her attacker's mothers as something happened to her knee. It was sprained and she couldn't run. She could barely walk. But she limped away quickly, using the walls and the adrenaline flooding her system. Everyone had fled. There were shouts in the distance. She looked back and was about to go back for Malek.

Something blew up and the shockwave pushed her to the ground, onto her hands and knees, scrapping both. There was blood on her hands. She looked back. Her ears were ringing and her head was throbbing. Half the wall to the apartment was gone and she could see part of the apartment below. Smoke billowed out. A fiery piece of wood was by her side. She coughed and pushed herself forward and got to her feet. Melicia turned a corner and another and hobbled down a side alley, looking behind, and trying to put as much distance between herself and the explosion as she could. There was a wailing of sirens, maybe some sort of police force or responders, and she needed to get away.

Melicia felt her heart pounding, trying to leap from her chest and run. She was separated from Malek and her leg felt like someone had stabbed a knife in her knee. She bit her lip from the pain and almost fell, but she caught herself on the building wall. The pain was growing worse. The alleys! They were a fraking maze! There was screaming and she was turned around, she couldn't find the market, couldn't find shit! She hobbled forward, almost falling on a trash can when her boot caught a ledge and her chin caught, slicing a good sized gash into it. The fall saved her life.

Energy blasts blew by her head, singing her hair and burning the tips of her ponytail off. The red-orange balls put fist-sized holes in the building's wall at the end of the alley. She fell into a puddle of dirty waste water and rolled. She fired back. _Crack, crack, crack_. The woman- dark skinned, dark haired, narrow eyes- dodged inhumanely fast. The bullets dinged on the brick-mud building behind her.

Melicia fired again. The woman fired back, her shots forcing Melicia to take cover behind discarded furniture. She squeezed off two more rounds. The casings clanged on the street. Then there was the dreaded _click_. Frak!

The woman was on her in an instant. She ripped out the pistol from Melicia's hand, breaking her index finger, and threw the pistol behind her, all the way to the end of the street where it hit the wall and just fell to the ground. Her hand was a blur and Melicia felt the slow, powerful squeeze of the woman's fingers on her neck. Melicia struggled to breath.

An arrogant, sinful smile appeared and her eyes grew as dark as a moonless night. Her hand began to slowly tighten. Melicia was kicking, kneeing the woman. She punched her in the ear and her grip loosened, but only just. A second punch was blocked and the woman chuckled. Her hand tightened.

The major tried to fight back. She tried to kick and punch but her arms were pinned and a knee was pressing into her thigh. The woman was so strong, so fraking impossibly strong, Melicia couldn't fight her off. And she was fraking smiling as she squeezed and squeezed. The major gasped for air and tried to pull her hands off her throat. Her vision began to black.

She was smiling until her head wasn't there anymore.

The hand loosened and Melicia pushed the body off and spat. She looked like someone had dumped a bucket of chum on her face and chest. She rolled onto her side, gasping, threw up a little from the blood and flesh in her mouth and pulled the woman's energy pistol towards her and held it so tight it hurt.

"How many times is that?" Malek was kneeling by her, pulling her up.

"I thought you were dead." She saw his face was heavily burned and blistering. His left arm had blood dripping down the finger tips. Malek was guarding his right side and she saw a nasty gash in his flank.

"There's more coming." He helped her up and she threw an arm over his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her. "Security will be here and they'll kill everyone."

They both hobble-ran as fast as they could. Turning a corner they were met with energy fire from their attackers. There was one. She looked very familiar to Melicia but she didn't get a good look. And she was concealed by the shadows from the close-in buildings and a late afternoon sun. She fired at them and they fired back. Malek and Melicia separated and Melicia fired to keep the other woman pinned. Malek moved forward quickly and pressed himself thin against a perpendicular alley building. The woman fired at him and Melicia just barely missed.

Malek did something, because it distracted the woman and gave him an opening. He hit her in the abdomen and she lurched forward, falling. Melicia shot as soon as she saw an opportunity and put a hole through the right flank which blew through her innards and exploded out the other side. Gore and blood exploded onto the wall behind them.

She hobbled back to Malek. They were near the market. It was chaos. People were running. Guns were being fired. Not at them, but at others. Their gunfight had been some sort of catalyst, kicked off something, because two groups of Jaffa were fighting each other. A mob had surrounded a luxury vehicle and the security detail was fighting them off. Others were just running.

Melicia and Malek just ran into the crowd. A few people behind them fell, screaming, dead. There were plasma balls tearing at the bystanders as another of their pursuers fired blindly into the thick crowds. The crowd was too dense and soon the buzzing hiss of the plasma ceased. They looked back, didn't see him, or her, and kept going. They could see maybe a dozen or more staff weapons above the crowd's head, all tightly grouped as Jaffa mercenaries rushed to the scene from the other side of the market.

They saw a gawking taxi-cart driver. Malek punched him in the solar plexus and threw him to the ground and they hijacked the taxi-cart and drove.

The trip back to the shuttle was fast. They drove as quickly as they could, evading two road blocks. They jumped from cart into the cloaked tel'tak and flew as a trio of death gliders approached from the west and strafed their former hiding spot. They set course to rendezvous with _Valkyrie_.

* * *

Commander Adama sat quietly and watched Major Upland nurse a small glass of ambrosia. She had it cupped in her palm on the table for ten minutes. Sitting across from her with only the low hums of the battlestar as background noise he lost himself in realization of how everything had changed, how nothing was the same. His eyes focused on the major, deep blue penetrating through her hard exterior.

"Is there anything you wanted to talk to me about, major?" His voice was stern yet soft. His eyes dragged up from the ambrosia glass to her. They stared, unblinking, until she looked away.

"No, sir. We need to get back to the Colonies now." She pushed the ambrosia forward.

Adama looked at the glass. It had barely been touched. "Who attacked you?"

"I can't say who, sir…" she looked him in the eye. "They looked like anyone else there." But they were fast, strong, and they weren't like anyone else there. She wanted to tell him, but couldn't.

The commander raised an eyebrow. 'I can't say who' had two meanings; one, she didn't know and two, it was need-to-know. She'd stick to whatever Marc Bannon had told her to stick to and for a moment Adama resented that, but let himself understand it. She was loyal and followed her orders. But she wouldn't put the ship in danger. That wouldn't serve any purpose. Them dying out here. She'd tell him if there was a threat and he trusted her on that, even if he had to ask.

"Is my ship in danger?"

"We cloaked and went into hyperspace. We dropped out and changed courses four times before the rendezvous. We weren't followed… no." Adama stared back at her. She sat quiet. "Whatever happened out there, sir, we were betrayed by someone… I don't know. Something happened but it's, it's I don't know what it is. I'm still trying to piece it together." She squeezed her forehead with a thumb and index finger. They left little imprints. "Everything that's out there… we just need to get back."

"Take your time, major."

"I don't know what happened," she mumbled. "We have nothing." Except for a recording, but she didn't say that.

Adama's jaw tensed. "We'll be back soon. Your old quarters are still vacant. Go to medical and then go and rest and report for duty tomorrow."

"There's too much going on, sir. I need to see my team."

"Is it-"

"_Action stations, action stations. Set condition one throughout the ship, repeat, set condition one throughout the ship. Commander Adama report to CIC immediately."_

The commander and major rushed into CIC, the commander first, followed by Upland like she was his shadow. "Status?" He snapped at Colonel Tigh.

The colonel grumbled. One hand was on the command console and another resting on the butt of his pistol. "We have DRADIS contacts… let's see if Amorak's sensors work." The colonel waited until the DRADIS signatures cleared. "Nine _al'kesh_ attack bombers. Alert Vipers are already in the tubes and launching." He grunted. "They're not running. Arrogant fraks. Think they have any idea what we can do to 'em?"

"We'll destroy them." Adama confirmed. Tigh broke into a smirk.

A few others in CIC exchanged looks and smug smiles. Kicking the ever living frak out of Goa'uld was something every man and woman on _Valkyrie_ wanted. It was a carnal desire. The cries for vengeance from a thousand of their fellow sailors shouted for them to engage and destroy the snakes when possible, and it was fraking possible now.

The commander could jump the ship. But that was pointless. Goa'uld sensors were far beyond DRADIS and they'd have detected him the moment they exited hyperspace. Either fight or run. Either way Sokar would know someone was here. Blowing those ships to hell would at least keep him guessing for a bit. If the Jaffa were smart one of their al'kesh would be hyperspacing back… the seconds ticked by. They kept closing.

Adama's blue eyes grew dark and narrowed to razor-wide slits. He studied the DRADIS while his hands gripped the command console, knuckles white. The bombers were coming in fast, very fast, and presented a clear threat to _Valkyrie_. If they got in close. Battle armor wasn't designed with plasma in mind. The damage to _Valkyrie_ after the first battle had been severe; plasma melted and melted and the only way to really slow it down was a void space or more armor. A few hits above the tyllium reactors could burn a hole through, ignite the fuel, and blow the ship.

The commander considered what they were facing. Al'kesh weren't impressive on their own and had serious weaknesses in their designs, mainly their lack of long-range armaments, dorsal weaponry, and massive blind spots. They were scouts and served as escorts. They weren't made to fight a battlestar. A battlestar was made to take down any sized ship and had the guns and canons and missiles to do it.

"You were followed, major," Colonel Tigh accused. The major glared at him angrily. "Should I get Malek up here?" He asked Adama.

"Re-orient, take them head on. Tactical, prepare to engage, load missile batteries and prepare for firing pattern protocol delta-one." Adama said to his tactical officer. He was calm. Delta-one was a creation of a flak field in front of the enemy advance with missiles coming above and below on the Y-axis. "Launch Primus."

Delta-one was an intense barrage of flak followed by missiles. With EW pods and the flak DRADIS could get distorted and pilots would be concentrating getting out of flak fields. Missiles followed for the actual kills. It probably wouldn't work as well on the Jaffa.

Primus was ordered out since it'd be up in the rotation. The CAP would rendezvous with Primus and a second alert squadron while two squadrons would stay in reserve.

The major leaned over to the commander. "We were _not_ followed."

Adama looked at her. "It doesn't matter. We can't allow the al'kesh to escape."

"Not that they seem to be," Tigh said in a grizzled tone.

Thirty-one Vipers and nine Raptors were forming up, readying to engage. Six of the nine Raptors were equipped with gunship packages, the other three were outfitted for EW and were already firing off spoofers and drones. Two more Raptors sat ready in the hangers for pilot rescue.

"They're trying to split off," Tigh said, nodding at the DRADIS. "Pretty standard. Three pronged attack. But they came in too far out. What, did they think we'd have our pants around our ankles? Gods damn… nukes? It'll keep our pilots safe, though they might grumble about it later."

"Not yet." Commander Adama didn't want to risk their detection. "Goa'uld motherships could pick 'em up. We just don't know… too deep in their territory," he said with a whisper.

The Old Man studied the DRADIS as his Vipers and Raptors moved to intercept. There were a few seconds before the battle commenced. A standard war tactic was to jump in close if the attacker wanted to force an engagement. Older FTLs needed to be shut down. They couldn't stay spun up like modern drives could for prolonged periods. The coils and aperture arrays would overheat and melt or cause mis-jumps. The bombers had come out of hyperspace too far. The surprise might have been theirs but they lost it quickly and now the terms for engagement were on _Valkyrie_.

Three indicators appeared on the DRADIS. Each trio of bombers was labeled; alpha, bravo, and constellation.

The commander breathed in deeply and held his orders. A glance behind Tigh showed half of CIC. They were calm, professional. There was the tension of battle but the concern, apprehension of their first engagement was diminished. They knew what the Jaffa were capable of, they knew what was coming.

"Batteries alpha one through nine, force the bravo and constellation formations back into a single unit."

The order was passed and confirmed. The decks shuttered as heavy flak fields were formed. In space yellow-orange explosions materialized as thick walls in front of the al'kesh, spewing small shards of metal fragments at incredibly speed towards the bombers. Their shields glistened and flared from the micro-impacts. Missiles followed. One al'kesh in constellation was knocked out, its DRADIS signature slowed and then flashed and disappeared. Tactical reported signs of a second bomber hit and venting atmosphere. They reformed back into one unit.

"Chief, launch decoys. Three jiggers," Tigh ordered. "Two EW mites." Chief Henri Xanthis yelled back a confirmation. Raptors would follow suit with a jigger each. "Throw up some clutter to confuse 'em a bit."

A second wave of missiles arced from the mighty gray-hulled battlestar. _Valkyrie_ rode forward at full military thrust to meet its attackers head on. The Colonial Phoenix Crest was brightly illuminated as they raced into battle.

The bombers went into evasive. Missiles were spoofed and flew off course. A few were shot down. But the intensity of the barrage meant three more al'kesh were gone.

Adama wondered if it was Jaffa warrior pride which forced the al'kesh to engage. Outnumbered this bad a Colonial would've retreated. Fight another day.

"Plasma strike incoming!" Tactical said, hurriedly, but not shouting.

The point defense batteries on _Valkyrie_ began to reorient and engage. The _thud-thud-thud-thud_ of canons was felt as deep as in CIC. The monitors displayed the batteries which were engaging. Each one flashed blue as it fired.

Automatically navigation took the battlestar into an evasive pattern, into a lazy relative dip and back up.

"Fire main batteries," Adama ordered.

The bow guns of _Valkyrie_ and her primary missile batteries opened fire. There were two salvos, three missiles per bomber in the first and two in the second. In moments the hulls of the al'kesh would be broken apart, sundered by the powerful explosive energies of anti-ship missiles. Reactors would go critical, secondary explosion would destroy the vessel. Atmosphere and bodies would evaporate into the endless darkness of space. The Fates had deemed the Jaffa would die that day.

Adama looked back and turned to watch the DRADIS. Al'kesh fell off the screen. One began to limp and couldn't keep up with the formation, if the surviving number could even be considered a formation.

The Vipers, in trios, split apart from the main formation, rose and dosed on the Y-axis while twelve, in four three-Viper groups, fanned out on the Z-axis. Raptors came in from behind, a good half dozen, covered by six Vipers.

The Goa'uld were heavily outnumbered and outgunned. But even a single al'kesh could destroy Raptors and Vipers with only one blast from their heavy plasma canons.

Viper chatter came over the wireless. Uppity, now a full colonel, was leading them. Combat controllers were relaying information from the Raptors. ECOs were modulating the Raptor's EW packages, trying to jam enemy coms and spoof their sensor nets.

The engagement was over quickly. The Goa'uld attack bombers were simply out gunned. It was doubtful they knew who and what they were engaging.

"Uppity's reporting… no casualties, sir," Chief Xanthis reported.

"Recall the birds, Saul. Send a Raptor to the collection point. We'll rendezvous with our recon birds at the secondary coordinates."

Condition One was maintained throughout the ship. The CIC grew momentarily quiet as the battle ended but the sailors and Marines continued their duties without interruption, celebration, or excess excitement. There were a few hive fives and a fist pump.

"We still have seven Raptors out there, Bill. Raptor-33 is the prize."

Adama nodded. "I know." He glanced at a mission clock. "If we jump Raptors in they could be detected."

"Or one of our Raptors were already found and captured," the XO countered, just throwing the idea out there and ending with a shrug.

"We'd have Ha'taks here if that was the case," Major Upland interjected, earning a trademarked mean glare from the XO.

"That's why we won't be at the secondary coordinates. Jump us to deep space half a light year core-ward," Adama ordered. "We'll position a Raptor at the secondary coordinates and then they'll bring them to us."

Tigh nodded. "Bit round-about, but if it's a trap then our Raptor can jump away."

The commander saw his XO glance at Major Upland. "Major. Inform Malek he's free to leave immediately. We'll prep the shuttle. If not, he's staying until we get back to base."

* * *

Raptor 33 was quiet and cold and floated serene in space, suspended far far above the enemy's stronghold. Its engines were silent. Its gravity plates were disengaged and its black armor made it almost indistinguishable from the vast blackness to the casual eye. Premie and Bulldog had barely said a word to one another in the last day. Each watched their set of instruments like the fabled phoenix would watch its prey. A single delay, a missed blip on the DRADIS and they could have both been dead or worse, captured and tortured endlessly.

The first day they'd talked a little bit, run some diagnostics, and slept in shifts. The second and third, not so much and on the fourth day they'd both been ready for the mission to end but had still been focused. Neither had slept in the last day, not as their mission came to a close.

Long-term missions like this had a superstition of succumbing to the Eros Effect- how nature and the forces of the universe often conspired to frak shit up at the last minute. It was always difficult to sleep on multi-day missions, especially those deep behind enemy lines. Premie had gone out on dangerous reconnaissance runs- though none quite this treacherous- and he'd always found it easier to sleep early on. Sometimes he wondered if the enemy knew they were there but were watching them.

Almost an hour ago the mission clock had beeped, surprising them both. Premie had been so focused on his instruments and his limited DRADIS display he'd jumped. His heart had pounded in his chest.

The clock beeped again and he swallowed. He tugged at his harness and secured himself back into his seat.

"We're ready to start calcs for a jump," Bulldog reported. He walked up from the ECO console, laid a hand on Premie's seat and looked forward. "Fraking Delmak. This place… let's put as much distance between us and this planet as we can."

"I hear that," Premie replied, tapping a set of buttons and readying for jump. He careened his neck and took the planet in with one wide-eyed swoop. He shivered. "But still…"

Far, far away the shattered remnants of Delmak's moon had stabilized into an odd, dilapidated-looking ring around the planet. The planet looked sinister. There was green, but most of the planet was brown. The Raptor's telescopes had imagined mass swathes of the planet covered in waste and industry. There were cities all over. Spaceships came and went. Massive landing pyramid-shaped pads served as service stations for ha'tak motherships on the planet.

"I hear ya." Bulldog shot back.

Premie saw two hyperspace windows open. They were bright, even from the distance of the Raptor to the planet. Within second the passive sensors on the Raptor-S were analyzing the energy readings. Two Ha'tak motherships had appeared. A third window opened, and Premie directed one of the telescopes to focus on it, this one belonging to some sort of transport, with hundreds of long, wide shipping containers connected by what Premie assumed was an advanced gravity manipulation device. There was a white-orange glow from the light beams going between the containers.

For him, just a Colonial, it seemed wasteful to use such a device to haul freight through space. Mag-locks worked well enough. Though on one hand wasteful on the other it was frightening just how much more advanced these snakes could truly be if they used them for something so mundane. Gods damn.

"Still," Premie said, softly, "gods damn, isn't this what we signed up for?" He mouthed a 'yes' and grinned until he felt his face would crack. He slowly powered up the systems needed to jump.

Bulldog snickered from behind him. "I guess… for a few more years." He sighed.

Premie chuckled quickly and smiled to no one, shaking his head. Bulldog had put off his plans for a civilian law enforcement job. 'Something's coming' is what he said, and he was damned right, Premie could feel it in his bones that a war unlike any other was coming.

He jabbed an index finger on the small keyboard to his left, inputting the last set of commands. A quick diagnostic of the equipment the R-S had been outfitted with showed green lights across the board. Their surveillance dome had been replaced with a new model, a Lancer HN/YH 79 multi-phased omni-directional aperture active/passive surveillance suite- Premie felt whoever had named that was just stringing sounding words together to make it sound really technical or impressive. The suite made dropping sensor buoys unnecessary. It was part of their policy to leave nothing behind on these recon missions.

The captain fidgeted in his seat. "Ready yet, Bulldog?" He looked over his shoulder. Bulldog was crammed in the cabin.

"No, this damn box thing keeps jabbing me in the side."

"Now you complain." There was a friendly mocking tone. "You sat back there for a day without bitching. Now? When we're about to leave… un-fraking-believable."

Bulldog was crammed tight because the modifications to the FTL drives resulted in added shield plating, some sort of thick wire mesh, and strange boxes and cylinders with blinking lights and other doo-dads Premie and Bulldog didn't have the clearance for to know what they did exactly. It was better that way, in case of capture. Ejection would trigger explosives to destroy the new equipment.

"Alright… ready… one sec, okay… ready to jump."

The captain nodded. He looked back at the planet. He felt warm, as a wave of pride bellowed up. He'd held it back but in that moment he felt pride. They were right under the enemy cock and the cock sucking Goa'uld hadn't noticed. They'd run perhaps one of the most insane, risky, and possibly stupidest recon mission in history and they were seconds from completing it! Premie snickered.

"Jumping in five… four… three…"

* * *

**Colonial Fleet Academy**

**Paestum, Caprica  
**

* * *

Kara looked over her shoulder and smiled. Red tracers from auto canons sipped by her Viper and went wide by a good ten meters. She took a long and slow breath and rolled her eyes at how easy this was. She heard cursing in front of her.

Her DRADIS bleeped loudly as a second no-clear bogey materialized on her display. It was maybe eighty klicks out, bearing up on her ventral aspect fast and furious.

"Predictable!" She shouted.

"Frak you!" Came a muffled reply.

It was predictable. The Viper accelerated, jolting forward with turbos on a two second burst and throwing Kara into the back of her seat as AG compensators strived to keep up. She began spinning her Viper in a lazy corkscrew. Not advisable, not smart, but showy.

A bullet dinged her wing and there was a whoop of excitement. Her flight computer wailed until she jabbed the buttons. Playtime was over. They'd dinged her and thought they'd done something fraking meaningful.

The two enemies on her tail were firing. One was going at an angle, trying to get above her and the other started going low. Standard. Predictable.

She had it in her mind to do something ballsy, risky, and probably foolish. But it'd show those fraks what she could do. Hopefully. She bit her lower limp and wrinkled her nose.

Her hand pushed the throttle, giving the Viper full power. Her turbos once again shot the Viper forward. She pulled on the stick and pressed the pedals. The Viper's RCE thrusters activated and she shot straight up, into the Viper above her. The nose started coming starboard in a flat turn as she headed up, spun so the Viper was heading nose first into the belly of the hostile Viper.

The Viper above her had a split second to decide to turbo away and break off. He broke off. It was perfect. Coordinating the motion between two arms and two legs pressed the pedals, tapped the stick, and throttled back and shot down, rolled the Viper, and came out behind the bottom Viper, opened up with her guns and destroyed the hostile with one fast burst to the engines before it could even react.

In one swift motion she countered the incredibly amount of momentum built up by her maneuvering by activating the turbos and pulling the hard six with RCS thrusters maxed, felt her Viper wobble and buck, disengaged turbos at the last second, fired the turbos again as her Viper wailed a structural alarm, and caught the last Viper trying to turn and re-engage and raked a sustained burst through the body of the Viper and blowing it to pieces.

Kara grinned and threw off the holo-band, space and the Viper cockpit disappearing. She held out her hand.

"You're a fraking cheater. Impossible maneuver."

She kept smiling. "And you're a fraking loser." She wiggled her fingers and her opponents threw gold cubits into her palm. "Thank you."

The two midshipman and their friends left the table, grumbling.

"Holy shit Kara." Karl Agathon had his hands on the back of her shoulders, giving them a congratulatory squeeze. "You fraking owned them. You bucked the Viper. Who bucks their Viper? You're lucky you didn't tear half the nose off."

"I don't think I've seen that one."

Kara grinned and winked. "No, Zak, you haven't. A girl needs to keep some tricks up her sleeve."

Karl snickered, tapped her on the shoulder and took a seat. "Now where's my cut?" He asked with a broad smile. His friend threw him one of the cubits. He picked it up and tapped it on the table. "Thank you, thank you. Jodie Decker in 1st-3rd wants a match. She's their top holo-player."

"Bring it on," Kara commanded, leaning back in her chair and throwing her feet on the table and coolly examined her fingernails. Then she blew on them and rubbed them on her shirt, with Karl snickering. She looked at Zak who looked worried and pursed her lips. "What?"

"What if we're caught," Zak said, leaning forward and whispering. "Gambling's against regs. We could-"

"Really?" Karl gave him a tired look. "After what we did last year you're worried about gambling…"

"My dad will _kill_ me."

Kara rolled her eyes, hard, and slow, and then again. "Ah huh. Anyway, I have an idea." She threw her feet off the table, leaned in, and then hurriedly gestured for her two friends to come closer. "So, I heard the commandant-"

"Hey, the president's speech is on!" Someone shouted.

Zak was distracted and Kara hit the back of his head. "Pay attention."

"It looks important." He jabbed his thumb behind him at one of the TVs. They were in the company's rec room, which was filling up with upperclassmen. "Come on."

Karl stood up with Zak and Kara followed. She was near the back, not really listening, and playing with her palm computer trying to plan out her latest antics.

"_… The Valkyrie battle group encountered and engaged an alien force…"_

Her head shot up and she tucked the computer back into a pocket while staring at the TV. She watched, biting her lip the whole time as history was made and the worlds changed.


	20. Chapter 20

**Caprica City**

* * *

Melicia Upland bent over and rubbed her knee. The walking made it hurt, but like her instructors had yelled at her: 'pain is weakness leaving the body.' She wanted to punch the asshole chief who'd repeated that over and over and over but somehow it felt like he just might've been right after all.

Her knee ached. Some aspirin had dulled the pain and she'd refused anything stronger. She didn't want drugs or the more potent pain killers the doctors were pushing. No, it clouded the mind, and it made her slow. And the pain was starting to go away. The sharp twang in her knee was just a dull ache now, after about an hour of walking around the Thessa District of Cap City.

The day was warm for this early in spring. She'd dressed herself in a pair of skinny jeans, a tight tank top, and a black leather jacket with a small Fleet emblem on the left breast. Her hair was tied back into a braided ponytail, though it was shorter by just a touch less than half a dozen centimeters, and it ended just before the mid-scapula.

While her knee ached she was still in a good mood, glad to be back, and just damned delighted to have _survived _that mission. Melicia hadn't expected to find herself in the Thessa District, a small area of eclectic shops and strange people, on the southern edge of the city. It was only a few dozen blocks long by a half dozen wide but it was packed with people, entertainers, and anyone looking for a good time. The colorful buildings were squat and small for Cap City, with barely any above a dozen floors. The buildings were a masterful and artistic mix of old and new. There were buildings of old brick masonry, wrought iron gates leading to apartments, old iron lamp posts, and mixed with all-glass and steel shops and new art classic styled apartment blocks. Colors, as long as they were bright, beautiful, and loud, were painted on the buildings in almost random, haphazard patterns.

It was a place for fun, for romance, for shopping, and to just get away from it. And maybe that was why Melicia's subconscious had directed her down here. She'd found herself here, wondering how she'd arrived, only to be pleasantly surprised she'd arrived.

A smile graced her lips. The smells of foods and drinks from across the Colonies were intoxicating. The rich scent of Virgon chocolates and spiced candies filled her nostrils. The relaxing smells of grilled lyn-ox waffled up from a street vendor's stall. The charred meat, sitting on greasy aluminum paper and with flies buzzing around would've given any of the city health inspectors multiple heart attacks, but a line ten deep was waiting for the scrumptious meat-on-a-stick.

She waited in the line and dug into her pocket for a few cubits. She saw the feet of the people in front of her move forward a little and heard the people behind her step back just a bit. What she didn't see as she dug into the pocket of her skinny jeans were the looks the people in front had given her, their eyes falling towards the word 'Fleet' on her jacket.

"One, please." She said when it was her turn. She smiled. The vendor took her money and almost jabbed the meat-on-a-stick at her. "Um…" she gave him a look, "thank… you…" She turned and shrugged the vendor's behavior away and figured it had just been one of those days.

She munched on the lyn-ox and enjoyed the tasty spices and the hint of sweet sugar melted onto the hot meat by the grill. Melicia had finished her lyn-ox by the time she'd walked to the crowd that'd been gathering and she'd flicked the wooden stick into a trash can.

A crowd gathering wasn't unusual, not really. Thessa was known for its crowds and its artistic people who would spontaneously block off a street, attract a huge group of excited and anxious onlookers, and put on a live show. There was always some wannabe amateur politician or one of those Save the World-ers on their lime crate preaching to any who'd listen on just about any topic imaginable under the four suns. Someone was always doing _something_exciting, fun, dangerous, or downright silly in the TD.

_Maybe I shouldn't_crossed Melicia's mind as she walked up to the crowd but it wasn't a coherent thought and wasn't something she really considered consciously. That little gut feeling that served her well started to churn up warnings and little tingles went through her spine, whispering for her to keep away. Still, she pressed forward, the ache in her knee vanishing.

As she approached the crowd she noticed a wicked glare here and there. It was hard to see the speaker in any fine detail, but he appeared to be well-dressed, and had dark black hair with a square jaw and a thin beard. He was speaking loudly and was aided by a small PA system and speakers on stands next to him.

"-and what do we hear, what do we learn months after the incident? That our warmongering Fleet has not only found true, sentient alien life out there in the galaxy, but has decided, unilaterally and without authorization to _make war on them_." There were growls, jeers, and people shaking their heads. "Finding alien life… we thought we were alone, we thought we were the Gods' only creation. Yet when we should celebrate such a historic moment we're gripped with fear and trepidation, with sorrow and darkness. The Fleet decided to make war, to find a war.  
"Is it wrong to say I'm embarrassed to be a Colonial?" Cries of _No!_ were loud. "Who'll be held accountable? No one. When the Fleet can't fight the Cylons- an enemy we created by _enslaving_ them- what do they do? They reach out into the depths of space, _find aliens, and then make them an enemy!_ They _claim_ Colonial battlestars were attacked… and? Of course if you trespass in someone else's territory in mother fraking battlestars with nuclear missiles and massive canons they'll attack! Our Fleet went _looking_ for a fight, knew what they were doing was moronic, and a fight they got! But we're not stupid, we're not easily fooled. The Fleet knew full well if they sent _warships_they could provoke a fight-"

Someone from the side pushed a pamphlet into Melicia's chest, which she reflexively grabbed. The guy, in jeans and a light jacket, with a C-Bucs cap on, passed her by without giving her another thought. She fixed the crumpled yellow flyer and read: _Stop the Imperialism of the Military-Industrial Dynasties. The Dynasties and the Military take from us to build their war machine. A True Democracy requires the actions of the True Citizens. The True Citizen's Party supports peace and social justice. Join us. TrueCitizensPartyCaprica._

She read the flyer again, sucked in a breath and sighed, exaggerating it. Melicia rubbed her forehead. Her knee started aching again. She took out her phone and checked the Mesh political sites, something she hadn't done until then. Aliens dominated the news cycles. Rich adventurers wanted to find more. There was a headline that the port authorities had to seize a dozen long-range FTL yachts that were preparing to convoy out into deep space.

Melicia looked back up as a glare from the sun made reading her phone almost impossible. She stuffed it back into her tight jean pocket.

"President Adar… I voted for him. I thought he'd be the reformer he claimed. But he isn't." Murmurs of_ 'true, true'_came from the crowd. A 'frak him' was shouted somewhere. "It's time for the people of the Colonies to tell our leaders we've had enough. Even the Progressives are nothing more than the legacies of the ancient families and-"

Melicia turned away. One small group, noticing her emblem was giving her no look of love or respect. She dropped her shoulders and shook her head at the crowd and lamented coming down to the Thessa District at all.

* * *

Two days later Upland found herself sitting across from some of the most powerful men in the Colonies. They were middle-aged, some old, well-groomed and elegantly dressed in fine tailored suits of expensive fabrics, and they were arrogant. They had to be arrogant. How could anyone humble believe himself capable of governing the near fifty billion descendents of Kobol?

Major Upland felt more comfortable to be back, done with rest and relaxation, and back in uniform and facing a debriefing with these men. Her experience in the TD had annoyed her, but she hadn't let it get to her, and she'd been able to forget for a few hour by enjoying the comedic _Agore and Zeus_at the Moon Gold Theater and laugh at the fictitious, incompetent, bumbling 'brother' to Zeus in their ancient Kobolian days.

The major was in the briefing room for the Planetary Defense Council, a small-ish room with sparse decorations. Except for the paintings and the large rectangular table the only other decoration was the emblem of the PDC; an oval trimmed in gold with a phoenix in the center and in its talons were a lightning bolt and an omega. Around the edge were ancient Kobolian symbols of protection.

The room itself was in a sub-basement of one of the buildings in the area of the city called the Government Complex. Government Complex _was_uptown Caprica City. It was dozens upon dozens of buildings, skyscrapers, parking garages, and embassies that were all interconnected by pedestrian sky bridges, trolleys and buses at street level, and a labyrinth of tunnels and untold numbers of square meters of underground levels and office space.

Dedicated maglev lines ran from all section of G-Complex out to gargantuan parking garages outside the city. Others knew G-Complex and its 86th Street mag lev as Gov-Co Mag. Go-Co Mag let the millions of workers coming into the G-Complex arrive and leave quickly. Only a few hundred thousand called the complex home, many living in older apartments that had somehow escaped the massive rebuilding of Caprica City into a interplanetary government nexus. Still, the millions working here were but a tiny fraction of the near endless numbers working for the never-ending government bureaucracy and its myriad agencies.

Major Upland had kept her eyes on Secretary Prestiok and George Benson, the chief of staff to the president who was sitting to the right of Fleet Admiral Tiberiu Ordinus. She thought the old fleet admiral looked unhealthy; cheek bones showing, face pale, and his skin seemed to almost sag from the bone. He moved slowly. To his left was the infamous Doctor Tassos Amorak- whom she already disliked more than his daughter- and who hadn't given her an inch during the debriefing.

If it weren't for an illness the Secretary of State would also have been present. And she envied him. She wished she could've been sick or called away in some emergency. The last four hours had been frustrating. And frustrating was her way of dealing with the rage-inducing blame game some of the PDC was playing.

At the center of the table was Vice President Darios Hesiod. He was the final senior member of the PDC. There were a dozen others in the back of the room with notepads. Undoubtedly there were representatives from Sections Seven, Eight, and Nine and a few officers ranging from colonel to admiral and general.

The young major could feel the weight of their gazes and their unsaid judgments and opinions as she recounted the events of Kallana. She could see each frown and hear their breaths as she'd described what she'd seen and she noted the tension and the nervous shifts in postures from the admiral and the secretary when she'd come to the part about the Cylon components. She was thorough, detailed and deliberate in her choice of words. Melicia narrated the video she'd taken. She read through her report, word for word, pausing only for sips of water.

Sitting next to her was Commander Marc Bannon, chin held high, hands folded on the table, a fresh haircut, and almost regal in his dress grays. His sash seemed to shine and his commander's insignia's glistened in the lights of the secured conference room.

After she'd finished the PDC had talked and discussed amongst themselves for some time, stopping from time to time to ask her for clarification.

The Vice President leaned forward, locking his steel gray eyes on hers. "Major, are you certain this was not a ruse by Malek?" His voice was deep and loud.

"I would see no reason for that, sir. His surprise was genuine. Sir… we almost died." And she wanted to add in _like I explained a dozen times already… sir_.

Hesiod nodded. "I think most of us here know the feeling, major."

Melicia swallowed. A small faux pas. The vice president was from Scorpia and he'd lived through the war and the Machine Blitz when the Cylons attacked a relatively undefended planet. She realized he'd faced death as a boy. His public bio was available at the click of a button. For two years as a child he'd eked out a miserable existence in the bombed out subways and underground highways of Penlas, one of Scopria's major cities and transport hubs.

He had the scars to show the horrors. Two Cylon bullets had torn into his stomach when he was thirteen years old.

"The Tok'ra are also untrusting of outsiders. You said so in your report."

Melicia faced the chief of staff, who picked up the manila file folder containing her report and then let it drop. Some other papers on the table rose from the displaced air.

The major nodded. "My experiences with the Tok'ra tell me they're truth worthy… maybe a bit _un_trusting of others, but their desire to overthrow the System Lords is sincere. I see no reason why they would go to such elaborate measures to both capture and not capture me. They may not like working with outsiders but they will." Her head cocked slightly. "They're a very uh, pragmatic people, sir."

Hesiod leaned back and his brow creased. "Their stand-off approach had a thousand years to work." He waved it off. "No matter. Explain again the encounter with the unknown assailants, and why did Fer'tak- a Jaffa trusted by the Tok'ra- why did he attack you?"

"I don't know, sir." Her shoulders went up a centimeter and back down. "He seemed to hesitate a moment before opening fire. He, it seemed, it, when he was standing in the doorway it appeared to me he was looking for something. For a moment I thought he was disoriented. He fired after he looked at the head and MCP… at least, that how I interpreted his actions."

"When he looked at the head and MCP?" Prestiok repeated with a combative tone and a cutting glare. "Could these even be Cylon components? Doctor?"

Doctor Amorak answered immediately. "If you take a pistol we manufacture and put it up against a pistol from the Earthers, to a man on the street with no training it would be a difficult exercise for them to distinguish the two. The recordings the major supplied are inconclusive… I couldn't rule out the possibility of them being Cylon." Melicia felt relieved Amorak was agreeing with her. She went in expecting him to be a bastard, based on her experience with his daughter. "But since the major failed to even return with the supposed MCP, we can't be certain. A Cylon MCP would most certainly have gone through multiple generations of advancement and refinement. While the _cosmetic_similarities are evident other than that, it is impossible to tell."

And there it was. He was a bastard and Melicia let herself a deep, screaming, and long mental sigh.

"Given the situation Major Upland described, she took the correct course of action." Bannon said, earning the irate gaze of Doctor Amorak.

"Securing the MCP should have been a priority," Amorak sniped. "It could have been a Cylon or it could've been an Annihilator. The later could explain how it was recovered so far from the Colonies. We do know the Annihilators went rogue after the war."

"Supposedly," Bannon said.

"We're also unaware of where the Tok'ra found the components," Amorak countered. "Due to the nature of the gate network finding one on Kallana is meaningless. Nizsim could have found the components on…any planet near us with a gate we don't know of and then transported them there."

Commander Bannon cocked his head. "Why would he do that? To trick us?"

"Sir." The eyes of those powerful men across the table focused back on the major. "When I fought those attackers something just seemed off, sir. They just didn't seem… everything felt wrong. There's no other way to describe fighting them."

"A gut feeling?" Amorak mocked.

"Yes, sir," Melicia answered with a forceful nod.

The vice president hummed and considered her. "Major, your briefing here was quite informative. You did an excellent job on Kallana and you've opened routes to potential contacts. We hope you continue to cultivate your contacts with the Tok'ra. That's all we need at the moment. We'll be in touch. Commander Bannon, Major Upland, you're both dismissed. Thank you."

The two stood, saluted the PDC, and left.

* * *

**Somewhere in the Colonies**

* * *

"Your friend is tense. She's not used to seeing me without shackles. Perhaps I could… ease her into my presence?"

Melicia shivered. She felt liked she'd been coated in slime and waste, forever unclean at those words and the disgusting imagery that flashed through her mind. It would have been reassuring to have a pistol right now; she'd have taken it out and threatened him, pressed it right behind his eyes, maybe even pulled the trigger. It'd be nice, but wishful thinking, and counterproductive.  
She locked her eyes with the man's and they flashed a golden white. A dirty smile graced his lips and he contemptuously brought a glass of purple ambrosia to his lips. His sip was long, all the while, he stared at Melicia.

The setting suns, making the sky purple and orange, and the thick trees didn't help to make the mood any less sinister.

"We had a deal," Bannon said with an even voice with one beat from sounding bored. It was a game. He blinked slowly. "So you either cooperate or you're back in a cell and strapped to a chair twenty-three hours a day with a tube to feed you and a bag strapped on you to shit in. Your choice, Rhadmet. We can do it with or without you."

"I demand to be relocated from this dull world. I will then help you."

"What's the current shade of color in our prison cells… major?"

Melicia put her chin close to her chest and stared at Rhadmet. "I think it's gray and white. I also heard asteroid prisons can get a bit uh, chilly, sir."

There were guards behind them and behind Rhadmet with stun guns. Security was tighter than a priestess in the Temple of Athena. Melicia felt a little safer remembering he had a stun bracelet locked on his ankle. And the little black orbs in the ceiling. Those could dispense enough gas a snake would fall unconscious. At least for a bit.

Rhadmet scrunched his face and sneered. "What you propose is madness. But if you want your warriors to die, then so be it. I could always wait for Sokar to come and enslave all of you after your Fleet is smashed. _Human._"

Bannon folded his hands in his lap. "If that day were to come, _snake_, do you think you would see it? All we would need for you would be a single bullet." The birds chirped outside as the three sat in silence.

"What do you need from me then?"

Melicia opened a briefcase. There was a laptop she took out and opened a file. She put in on the table and hand on the top of the screen, swiveled it around. "Those are reconnaissance photographs of Delmak."

Rhadmet barely looked at the photographs. He waved his hand and sipped the ambrosia. "Impossible. It is impossible you took these." Melicia exchanged a look with Bannon and Rhadmet gulped down the last of his ambrosia. "How did you take these?"

"How we took them is irrelevant. If you want to be moved you'll tell us everything you know about Delmak and its defenses." Bannon said.

The Goa'uld tabbed through the photos. He kept his emotions hidden well but Melicia could see the subtle changes and tics and the slight dilation of his pupils. His cheeks had reddened.

"You want me to turn against Sokar?"

Bannon leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "You know what we're capable of. You were high up in his chain of command, Rhadmet, so you know what the defenses were like. I need to know standard ship patrols, response times, planetary defenses and shields. Give those to me-"

"You will give me slaves for my bed. And I will give you details."

"Show me what you can offer us." Bannon stood. "Or are we done here?"

Rhadmet held up a hand and made a sweeping motion. "Wait." His jaw muscles were visibly tensing, his inner conflict made physical. "We both want something. What do you want now… so I can..." he paused and swallowed his pride, his Adam's apple bobbed, "show you good faith."

The commander sat back down. "We can start with the number of warships, death gliders, and palace garrison…"

After being in Rhadmet's prison mansion, Melicia felt she needed a long bath in bleach. She looked back over her shoulder as she and Bannon approached the awaiting car. His prison was lovely, with expert craftsmanship on the stone entranceway and intricate carvings on the wood doors. This FID 'safehouse' was at the end of a half-kilometer gravel driveway, lined by red and blue flowering bushes, and the grounds were covered in thick trees.

This was her first time at one of these active prison homes. She'd once been to the historical Kenduk House far on the northern reaches of Caprica, where the Alliance of Five had deposed the last remaining monarch and imprisoned her and her family far away from civilization and further away from enjoyment and happiness.

As impressive as this house was, it was a prison. It radiated warmth, but it was superficial, an illusion. Inside it was cold, creepy, disturbing made so by its single permanent occupant.  
"We received another communiqué from the Tok'ra last week." Bannon said as he opened the door for himself. "From a Tok'ra who managed to infiltrate Sokar's palace… it's reliable. We'll be using it. Corroborate what Rhadmet told us."

Melicia stopped at the car and hesitated to get it. "Will you really give him… people… to do… sir? Can't you hook him up to a V-World sim?"

The major knew that last question was asking too much. V-World sims worked for a little while but collapsed after prolonged use. She wasn't sure of the neuroscience behind it but for some reason the human brain rejected the simulation if subjected to it non-stop.

The commander looked off. "No. There's other ways to make him talk." He glanced at the major. "If it comes to it, you won't be involved, major." He turned off and started walking down the driveway, towards an awaiting town car. "Let's go."

* * *

**Myrmidon Fleet Station**  
**Orbit of Caprica**

* * *

"How're you not bingo fuel, Bill?"

"Saul." Commander Adama licked his lips ,which were chapping in the cool, recycled air of the fleet station and took his glasses off, pinching the frame between his thumb and index finger. "I thought you were on a date. With Ellen? Did you cancel?"

Saul Tigh huffed. "Um…" he raised an eyebrow and scratched the side of his neck. "I was. That was last night, it's morning. Gods, Bill, how long've you been here?" He leaned on an illuminated table and pulled over the image printouts the Old Man was looking at. There was a load of them, maybe about five hundred or more hard copies in two piles in a dozen manila folders with red bindings. "The recon photos… there's a hundred Iddies going over these." Tigh looked around. There were at least fifty people there at computer stations at the moment, gathered around monitors or desks, and on a quick glance, a number of colonels and commanders and no less four admirals and three generals. Tigh recognized the short stature and raven-black hair of Rear Admiral Anna Grey, a feisty middle-aged woman with a temper and a reputation for brinksmanship and confrontation. They'd served on the same ship with her as XO and himself as a department head. "There's plenty of people, how about breakfast? They have cinnamon eggs."

Saul smacked his lips at the images of eggs dancing in his imagination, and of the bitter kero cheese he'd sprinkle on them, and the juicy, tasty crunch of some real, honest-to-gods bacon. There always had to be bacon with eggs. And the officer's mess on Myrmidon served some of the best gods damned bacon in the Fleet.

"In a little, Saul."

Adama kept his head down but heard the groan from his XO. His response was an eyelid raised just a bit.

"Premie and Bulldog did a stand up job. They got right in the fraker's face and he didn't see them. They'd get commendations if this weren't so gods damned tight and secret." Tigh mused as he examined the photo and his index finger rotated it. He cocked his head as his brow furled thoughtfully. "Landing pads?"

"For the mother ships," Adama explained. "There's about a dozen in and around the city."

Saul nodded a few times. "Do we know troop strength?"

Tigh turned around when he heard a young woman answer and place more files on the desk. She also must've memorized which folder had the specific photos, because she arrayed a half dozen with red circles. She pointed at them.

"We've identified barracks all around the city. A preliminary estimate puts the Jaffa population at approximately two and a half million. With the city population at roughly ten times that, if our density numbers are right, but spread over an area almost four times that of Cap City. Another preliminary estimate puts the number of warriors at around a million low-end and high-end of two." She looked up at the colonel. "Good morning, sir."

"You were here all night, Bazinet?" Saul glanced into the dark olive green eyes of the Sagittaron woman.

"Yes, sir."

Adama saw that Tigh's gray eyes on her made her stand a little straighter, but she leaned forward a little. He liked her. She was new and confident and wasn't a woman afraid to rock the boat. He'd read her article in _Fleet Weekly_. The commander offered a mental nod of approval to her and Upland and the amazing team she'd put together.

"How do we know a million or two?" Tigh asked.

"The Jaffa are between one and ten to one and twenty of the population, with generally sixty percent or more of their males over fifteen being warriors. Or more. In Sokar's case, it's closer to eighty-five percent. It's a Tok'ra estimate," Bazinet explained, putting in a soft shrug at the end. "We can't do more than give an educated guess… especially since we haven't had the time to study Jaffa culture in any sort of depth. But with the Tok'ra estimate.." she trailed off and threw in a second shrug. "We could sit and second guess ourselves all day."

"_Tok'ra_…"

Adama smiled at Tigh's tone. "They're not that bad."

Tigh didn't respond right away. He drummed his fingers on the raised edges of the table. "One thousand or a million doesn't make a difference to a nuke. City's dense… that's a lot of collateral damage. Unless we use the babies… fire a few EXPENs, low yield…" Tigh rested his index finger on one of the landing pads. Extreme penetrator warheads could collapse the landing pads and the factories. "Give our guys anti-radiation meds and there'll be no exposure consequences."

"That might not be possible, colonel," Bazinet started, "we've been told these could be shield generators. Baby nukes won't dent them."

"Shield generators?" Tigh pressed himself on the table and squinted. He looked up at the recently promoted second lieutenant. "You figure this out, Bazinet?"

The lieutenant's chin dimpled. "No, sir. It came down from on high; these are shield generators." She pointed. "And covert weapons emplacements. Our analysts suspect some of those platforms could hit space-based ships and judging by their size- scaling up the plasma weaponry- could probably core anything sort of a battlestar with a direct hit."

"It's always something," Tigh mused, lips cocked into an annoyed smile.

"It always is, Saul." Adama said. But he cracked one of those devious 'I have a plan' smiles Tigh knew so well. "We're close to figuring something out."

"We always do, Bill."

"We're gonna have to hit them hard to calm the public," Bazinet threw out, her head still down, facing a group of photos and her eyes scanning them. She glanced up at the colonel and commander. "I heard Councilor Jayst is calling for an investigation."

Adama grunted.

Tigh snorted. "Damned politicians."

Commander Adama pumped his eyebrows over his glasses frame and canted his head. "Jayst has a lot of respect in the PC."

"I met him once." Two pairs of eyes turned towards Bazinet. "He's… nice."

"A politician," Tigh grumbled again. He rapped his fingers on the table. "So, you think we've got a good chance at this? Or that we can trust that 'inside man' to pull everything off, not betray us, stab us in the back?"

"You know, Saul, the Twelve Colonies hasn't lost a war yet."

Tigh looked up and playfully rolled his eyes while nodding. "Oh yeah… now, just someone needs to tell Sokar that…"

* * *

**Sarqara, Capital City of Delmak**

* * *

The air had a weak chill on it that was tempered by the great burning flames of torches and the warm food radiating heat and lavish smells at the table. Marteen picked up a wine glass by its thick, jewel-encrusted stem, and smiled at his host. He sipped, the dry liquid warmed his mouth and throat and he felt a tingle in his stomach. His eyes stared into the deep purple eyes of an intoxicatingly beautiful young woman with light-brown skin and dark brown hair worn straight and shoulder length. She caught his eyes and her glowed.

"You're enjoying yourself?" She asked with a smile.

Marteen closed his eyes and smiled back. He sucked in a deep breath through his nostrils. "The food is delicious, the drink exquisite, the entertainment surreal and the view…" he smirked.

"You are well-versed in flattery."

"Flattery has truth in it. And why would I need to flatter a woman as beautiful and… compelling as yourself?"

_And I still can't believe your lines still work on Goa'uld sluts_, Nyklos said in the back of Marteen mind. _Their vanity sickens me_.

Marteen mentally sighed at his host's never-ending display of hatred towards the Goa'uld. _I hate them, too, but there is a time and place, Nyklos_, he scolded. _Let me concentrate_. And Nyklos was silent.

The Goa'uld frowned. Marteen could tell it was an act. "And why would you find me 'compelling'?"

Marteen leaned forward and rested his arms on the table and ignored the food in front of his, on the jeweled plate. "So many of our brothers and sisters grow fat and lazy off our great lord Sokar's conquests and are contented to live not for the greater glory of our lord of fire but to only fuck and eat." He pushed his plate away, towards her. "We're different, you and I. We see more to this life… where our talents can be realized, where our slaves will worship us." He lowered his voice. "And we can have it together, Mekpta. We can combine our skills and be recognized by our lord, move to higher stations… from here…" he waved at her apartment.

Her apartment was large, but always too small for a Goa'uld seeking promotion and riches, and while decorated in beautiful paintings, sculptures, and works of art, lacked the sheer numbers of luxuries many of the higher ranking Goa'uld possessed. Her slaves were fewer, her apartment smaller, and the sculptures and pieces of art from civilizations still living or merely recently conquered. The table she and Marteen ate could barely be called 2nd Era 4th Dynasty.

Her dresses were rich and fashionable but they lacked a certain elegance and splendor the other Goa'uld ladies of the higher courts possessed.

When he waved out at the apartment he'd seen a sparkle of shame on Mekpta's eye. Whatever a Goa'uld accomplished they always yearned for more and he knew this intimately as his own experiences and his own time as a Tok'ra and a spy weighed heavily. He was one of the oldest Tok'ra, most like the Goa'uld, and could feel the demons rising inside of him which were surely rising in her. He, unlike her, could control them and use them to help end the blight of the Goa'uld dynasties. She on the other hand would let them control her, consumer her, and drive her into his arms and into a ruin of her own making, bred from her genetics and reinforced by a culture seeking absolute power and glorious triumph.

Marteen would be ready to catch her when she fell towards him. And manipulate her. Deceive her.

Mekpta turned and considered the three semi-nude dancers at the end of the table. Their slow gyrations and dances were distracting and somewhat ironic entertainment given what her diner date had said. The man, wearing nothing but a thin loincloth rubbed himself on one of the women while grouping the other as she did a backwards bridge, lifted her legs and brought them around, coming up and brushing chest-to-chest with the man.

Mekpta put her hands under her chin and like a young, innocent girl, fluttered her eyelashes, which were a dark black and long. The green eye shadow formed circles around her eyes, which went to points towards the temples, in latest palace fashion. "I've heard such flatteries before. There are too many of our brothers and sisters who grow plump lethargic but what do you have that could possibly benefit me? Why should we bond ourselves? My position is higher than your own. I would do myself no favors. I see no benefit to this risk."

Marteen sensed there was more than just mild reservation. He let himself step forward; to the edge of the cliff he was fast approaching. "I remembered you were friend to a sister who was banished. She took risks and was young and held high rank."

Mekpta's jaw clenched. Marteen could see the hurt in her eyes, which quickly vanished under the veil of hard, egotistical Goa'uld self-centeredness. To show attachment was weakness to be exploited.

"Her banishment was justice." Mekpta was loud. He saw her swallow. "Sokar had ever right to end her life. His wisdom gifted mercy in staying her execution."

She spoke like she was being recorded, like Marteen was testing her. He wondered if he'd overstepped and if he had destroyed his chances with Mekpta. Goa'uld were incapable of true friendship, true love, and long-term intimacy. Their quest for power and thirst for domination- which could never be satiated- drove them to betrayal. In part he pitied the Goa'uld and their genetic corruption.

"Indeed. Ambition does not need to cloud our loyalties, Mekpta. Together we can rise and put that name, that relation, behind you." His left hand grabbed his right.

"Together?"

The Tok'ra spy raised his head and shoulders. He pushed out his chest. "My position will soon be elevated because I know what I plan will succeed." He took a computer tablet from his light jacket, activated it with a swipe of his finger, and pushed it over, smirking and grinning.

The Goa'uld woman sat back, her face hard with a challenging scowl. She grabbed the tablet and began reading. After a moment the scowl softened. "Well… you're ambitious."

"As are you and I know you can see the benefits to that program. If it succeeds we could help our lord win this war."

"Ambitious for one of your rank," she said again, nodding, and cupping her chin. Her head swiveled to the slaves. "Leave us now," she commanded. "But this… it could lead to ruin if we fail. I would need to divert ships and escorts. Significant resources."

Marteen held Mekpta's eyes. "A risk, of course, but one which leads to great rewards, you can surely see. Our lord values that which makes him stronger, for his strength is our own." He took this as his cue. Marteen stood, knowing how dangerous this game he was playing truly was, how one wrong move could end him, end Nyklos, end Kiva and perhaps even the slave admiral. He moved softly around the table. He lowered his voice and put his ear close to Mekpta. The moisture of his breath gave her goose bumps which he could see prickle on her neck. His words were chosen carefully, and Nyklos reminded him to appeal to her vanity. "But you and me, together, we would have more than we could dream. And you, with your position, would advance far… you could have a place at Sokar's council. We would be honored."

Her head turned towards his own, her eyes low and narrowed, and her breath hot on his mouth. "Me… on his council…"

She trembled under his touch, as he moved his mouth closer to her, and his hand down her stomach and in between her thighs, pushing up the light dress. "You're destined for more than this."

"We would risk much. Our lord's retribution for failure can be swift."

"I know you won't fail. We can rise together." He worked his fingers until they were inside of her.

"Yes…" her body shook.

His lips and her connected, his hand rubbing between her thighs and within her. Marteen knew he had her and knew that he was one move closer to wrecking the corrupt and disgusting rule of the System Lords and smashing the fields of bones and lies Sokar had built his empire upon.

* * *

**Yakana Province, Sirisan**  
**Elutjah**

* * *

Lt. Stagna closed her eyes and felt the gentle vibrations of engines through the transport as it accelerated and banked. Someone down the line yelped a cruse when it bucked and dropped after hitting a patch of turbulence. The AR-44 VTOL transport swooped down as a green linked blinked in the bay. _Here we go_, the lieutenant thought, swallow anxiety, and focusing on her platoon.

The men and women had their rituals. She checked her combat goggles, clicked on the vision enhancers, clicked them off, and ran a hand over the pouches carrying her extra magazines and grenades. She tapped on her battle rifle.

Combat. This is what she'd trained for. She knew what it was like, knew its ferocity and its brutality. There were things she would, could, never forget; what they did on the mothership. _The snakes… the smells… my squad, my people…_she thought. She swallowed her guilt and fear and sucked in a deep, refreshing breath through her nose and closed her eyes.

There was a flash of brilliant-as-a-sun yellow light. Her eyes shot open. A second explosion. Red dots fallings. VTOLs were popping flares. She could see explosions on the ground when the AR-44 banked again. Then a VTOL exploded. She saw the outline of its engines and wings, saw it crack, the wings fold in on itself, and tumble from the sky. She felt helpless. She looked over herself; her vest, her helmet, her rifle, and grenades were useless up here. _Gods damnit_… she thought, _gods damnit_… Some were trying to push out of their seats and see the explosions.

"We're almost there," she shouted over the din. Her people sat down.

The chin mounted chain gun on the transport opened fire and she felt its thud-thud-thud through the metal fuselage. For a second she wondered what they were firing at. Suppressing fire, perhaps, to destroy whatever had opened up on them. Fire was too heavy. _This is already fraked up_, she thought.

"Ready, sir?" There was a husky voice to her right asking the question.

Stagna looked over at SSgt. Michael Adella, from the soles of his boots to the top of his helmet, she considered him a moment. He was a big man, probably twice her weight, all muscle, with blond hair- cut so short she could barely tell-square jaw, and features typical of a Marine in a V-World action game. The young woman let out a mildly amused snort, grinned and lopsidedly nodded. "You bet, staff sergeant," she replied but doubted if she'd sounded sincere. He was looking at her and she felt uneasy. "Everyone ready?"

"I talked with squad and team leaders before we got aboard. We're good to go, sir. We won't let you down."

She looked him in the eye. Her hand was gripping her knee. "I know. Stay on it, staff sergeant."

The lights in the cabin flashed red twice and seconds later the VTOL's rear hatch opened and mere heart beats after that they touched down. Stagna was the first out with her left heel striking pavement and the Marines followed quickly in orderly procession, some shouting 'come and suck some' and 'frak on' at no one and nothing.

"All squad leaders get them going! I want threes over by the staging area! Move, move, move!" SSgt. Adella shouted, voice booming and thick finger pointing. "Get going and stay on it!"

Stagna fell in beside her Marines as they jogged to the company rally point. She craned her neck and watched three massive Condor VTOLs land on the far edge of the airport. The trees were still smoldering and she saw tanks moving into the woods and down the roads. One fired its main gun. Armored fighting vehicles were patrolling. VTOLs were taking Marines deeper into the city from the outskirts of the airport.

Thirty-five Marines, including herself, were about to be thrown into one of the largest urban battles since the Cylon War. She had a lot to prove. And that fear and anxiety was washed away as she knew she had ten thousand Marines by her side.

And that she had more fraking firepower than all the gods on Mount Fraking Olympus. She turned quickly to the Sirisi city, Yakana Olort it'd been called in the briefing: _Come and suck some_,and she turned back and headed to the rally point.

* * *

"This is so frakin' awesome!" Corporal John Lotar screamed above the zing of bullets and the booms of explosions. The young Marine turned to his squad mates and grinned, showing a gleaming white set of teeth. "Suck some! Frak yeah, bitches!" He yelled at a group of buildings about a kilometer down the boulevard as they collapsed under artillery strikes into piles of brick and mortar into the street. A dust cloud waffled over the street and sunlight glistened in the broken glass until the dust settled.

SSgt. Adella turned to Lt. Stagna. "I don't get it," he said, jabbing a thumb back, "thirty-six hours of fighting and he's still as excited as when we started." He sighed and shook his head. A second later he chuckled. "Hey, corporal," he shouted over his shoulder, "let's keep it down."  
Stagna crouched low. "Ready?" Adella confirmed by putting his battle rifle to his shoulder. The two turned to the left and right and fired out the window, down the boulevard, and into a building far away. Their rifles kicked back into their shoulders, their _cracks_ringing in their ears. Bullets raced through the air and smashed into bricks, plaster, and human bodies.

A VTOL roared overhead when it fired rockets into the building the squad had been firing into. Two rockets slammed into the upper levels, blasting out windows and bricks went flying. A third and fourth rocket hit further down, one the facade, and another streaked through a broken window with a drape waffling in the wind. A blink later and the entire floor was belching fire from every window. Two Sirisi soldiers ran and fell from the third floor, on fire, one onto the street and one onto a car, breaking its windshield.

The Marines waited and a group of Sirisi soldiers ran from the building, which was flaming and belching thick black smoke. One shot took one down. A second stopped the man in front of him. Machine gun fire racked the panicking men but eight of the eleven made it across the street.

From somewhere a rocket streaked towards Stagna's position. "Incoming!" someone shouted.

The rocket veered left and shot up, impacting onto a fourth floor wall and rocking the building. Dozens of gray bricks fell into the dirtied, dusty street.

Artillery from the airport answered a call from third platoon and one building exploded, followed by a second, a third, and a fourth. There were whistles from some of the men and women in second platoon. In the distance Stagna could see shoulder fired missiles and what were probably rocket grenades being fired at any VTOL they thought were in reach; pot shots.

The city was on fire. It should've been a beautiful city, with skyscrapers and townhomes and apartment buildings. There were storefronts and strip malls. From the air it looked normal, if the smoke and fires were ignored, and on the ground the architecture was stunning, with curves and hard angled buildings, with paint in brilliant and lively reds, blues, greens, and purples.

The city was on fire and it was bleeding. Stagna sighed as her eyes scanned the city. _Close to three million live here_, and they couldn't go anywhere. There hadn't been enough time. She prayed to the patron gods of the Marines- and especially reverently to Ares and Hades- that the civilians would not suffer and that this Battle of Yakana Olort would be over. Soon.

As she reloaded another magazine into her battle rifle an alert came over the battle network. _Constellation company ordered to advance to following sectors…_ she confirmed the orders and checked her map. She grimaced. A general advance in the urban environment, with huge buildings that hadn't been cleared… _what the frak they thinking_? She ordered her platoon to move out.

* * *

Second platoon had been advancing when the Sirisi struck, and struck hard and fast. An armored assault vehicle had joined the platoon, giving them heavy firepower as they advanced into the city. They had barely begun to move out, maybe moving only a few hundred meters, but already had been forced to divert. Burning cars were crammed into the roadway. Aerial assets had them reroute.

The platoon was spread down the block, keeping with the AAV and scanning buildings, stopping from time to time if there was suspicion. Thermals were near useless beyond a few hundred meters due to the fires the Sirisi defenders had set with so many cars and tires burning, black smoke, thick and choking had filled the roadways which were volleyed in between buildings.

"Frak, get to cover!" Sgt. Archias Zolos, the twenty-four year old second squad leader yelled as bullets pinged off an AAV. It's turret began to traverse and it opened fire at a storefront with its auto canon, blowing out classes and cutting down people. "They're on the roofs!" He fired, paused, and then fired again. Corporal Lotar was following up, firing much faster with his squad machine gun at nearly anything that moved.

Stagna brought her rifle up as she shouted orders. They were in the kill zone and they needed to get out, ASAFP. She fired a quick burst at a moving, shadowy figure on the roof and forced him down. "We need air support, roof hostiles," she began. She took cover behind a pillar and fired back up across the street and then brought her rifle down and fired into a building. Two bullets went through the glass and struck a man in the chest with blood splashing the windows.

The AAV was a bullet, grenade, and rocket magnet and the platoon moved away. Teams were already breaching buildings while others held the attention of the ambushers on the street.

A grenade was lobbed from up high and it exploded on the bed of a truck which pushed it down then back up, and fire came down and under through a hole in its bed. Another grenade landed near one of her Marine's position and pinned down from fire he couldn't move.

He rolled in the second before it detonated to behind a small wall, saved himself, and then popped up and killed one of his attackers.

Lt. Stagna fired again until her rifle clicked empty and she reloaded. Before she realized it she was forced to reload for a third time. She couldn't feel the sweat stinging her eyes or feel her heart beating a million thumps per second in her chest. Her breathing was slowly and she was unblinking and resolute in her determination to fight her way out of this ambush. Stagna fired single shot and held covering fire for another Marine. Then she waited, _one… two… three… so predictable_, she thought and fired a single bullet into the face of a soldier who'd been firing, hid for three seconds, and then popped back up and had done it twice in the same spot.

"Watch your fire, civies!" Someone down the line yelled. Kids and women and an elderly man were running between an alley and down a side street, heads down and hands flailing, with the kids yelling and screaming in horror.

"To the left, nine o'clock!" "Watch the second floor!" "The purple building!" There was chaos. Marines with rifle grenades fired them into buildings. One hit a wall and exploded, sending shrapnel, nails, screws and debris back out into the street at the Marine.

A rocket blew up against the AAV on its front armor. The gray-green camouflage pattern was slightly tarnished in the front, and there was a scorch, but it hadn't penetrated armor that was decades more advanced than anything the Sirisi knew existed. Another rocket and a grenade exploded prematurely in the roadway and left craters and little bits of black asphalt sprinkled on the front end of the Colonial armor.

Staff sergeant Adella loaded a proximity rifle grenade and fired it with a low _pop_. It broke a window, the glass still falling in shattered pieces when it exploded within the room on the top floor of a four floor building. Someone with a rifle was thrown from the building and he toppled end over end until he smacked into the pavement. Another person was handing halfway out the window dead. And only the gods knew how many more Sirisi were dead inside. But a long man stumbled towards the window, gasping for breath, his green Sirisi army uniform in tatters and his helmet handing back, his chin strap around his neck. He grasped the broken window frame, uncaring that his hands were being cuit to ribbons by the sharp glass. A bullet from Adella straight into his chest collapsed the soldier onto his back.

Lt. Stagna made her body small and ducked behind cover with the staff sergeant. He pulsed his eyebrows up and smiled at her before he turned back around and shot once and then again. A second later he was firing at a Sirisi soldier ground level with a rocket grenade launcher aimed at the AAV.

First squad reported the buildings on their left had been cleared. Stagna looked back up over her covered position and saw another room blow outward, cracks of friendly rifle fire following, and then an all-clear from the second team.

While one RPG was taken out a second was fired from a second floor balcony. It impacted near a Marine who'd taken cover behind a vehicle. The fireball sped away into the sky and the force of impact sent the Marine flying and into the street. Stagna directed first squad to pull him back and they laid down covering fire. One Marine in the street was shot in the thigh and collapsed. The AAV backed up slightly, its turret traversed and fired at its maximum elevation. One of the gunners had gotten into the turrets and was firing from the machine gun mounted on top. He swiveled left and racked two Sirisi who were setting up a third rocket attack as bullets pinged off the vehicle. The young Marine had to duck back in. He rose back up but was pushed back into the rear of the hatch by a bullet and he fell back down. Stagna caught it out of the corner of her eye and hoped the vest had taken the damage.

First squad was able to fire across the street into the buildings on the right side of the platoon. They held their fire as teams from second squad entered and killed them from behind.

Reports from first squad said there were many more on the rooftops, coming in over plank bridges and streaming up from another building. _Where the frak are they hiding, gods damnit! _The lieutenant cursed.

"We might need to pull back, sir," Adella advised as he crouched beside his platoon commander with a face dirted and blackened by ash and dust. He wiped his nose on his sleeve which was bloodied. His face was scratched up, just under the left eye.

"We need to-" Stagna shouted into the platoon wireless when two VTOLs came in and began firing chain guns into the rooftops. Screams of pure, unadulterated agony and pain were heard as the bullets ripped into the soldiers, tearing and breaking flesh and bone from their bodies. "Speak of the gods' damned devil," she sighed in relief, smiling to the platoon staff sergeant. A call came in over the wireless that Alpha Company was advanced with additional armored support and would be there momentarily.

_This is not as easy as they made it out to be_ she thought as she swallowed and then spit out nasty dust and dirt that had somehow found its way into her mouth. Miraculously no one had been killed in the ambush but she needed to medvac four of her Marines _right now_, or there would be casualties.

_Ambush… Capture. _A second later Afina Stagna felt her body shake, she felt herself gasping for breath as the fingers of that woman wrapped around her neck, squeezing her throat, and her legs kicked and arms flailed. A huge man punched in in the gut, all air left her lungs, and she felt herself going limp from the grip as she tried so very hard to gulp for air. The woman brought that thing, that glowing thing over her face and she heard it, deep and ominous, and felt her mind opening against her will. She fought, but heard the woman's seductive, passionate voice whispering for her to reveal her secrets and desires. _No, evil! _

She snapped back when she felt a hard hand grasping her shoulder and looked over, Adella's hard eyes compassionate and now soft. She grabbed his hand and threw it off her shoulder, closed her own eyes and looked away, hiding shame. She dragged her feet until she was in a jog and approached her counterpart from first platoon as he led his Marines to support them, relieve their position.

For the first time in her life she questioned her leadership, her competency, and looking back over her shoulder as she came to meet the first platoon lieutenant, she looked at her Marines and how they'd outfought the Sirisi ambush, and wondered if they were safe with her…

* * *

**Eluuria**

* * *

Group Captain Karden Glentan vo Niur leaned back in his chair, which squeaked a little, and with a pencil between his thumb and index finger was bouncing it on his knee under the table, and he tried in utter vain and failure to distract himself from looking at the Colonials. Their blue and gray uniforms burned his eyes and he tried to turn away, but he examined each one at the massive, thirty-person conference table and the dozen or so sitting behind. He noted their apparent ages, ranks, positions, and most importantly, the way they looked at his fellow Eluurians and the way they held themselves, their demeanor.

This hadn't been what he'd expected when the Colonials came. But really, what could he have expected? It was fantastic what had happened. It was beyond even the wildest machinations of the most imaginative screenwriters! Humans more powerful than goa'uld wander into their world during a cold war and start a nuclear way then ally with them and invade their enemy…_what the fuck_, Karden thought, mentally shaking his head and cursing… something, his luck, the planet's luck. Maybe even that fictitious and superstitious and dangerous 'fate' the polytheists believed in so much.

His friend had asked him to keep an open mind, two eyes open, and just _look and see_ how they treated their supposed allies. And in the months since his meeting with his old friend at the air base when the Colonials had begun to land their troops in number he had seen what he had needed to see, heard what was _really_ said and _truly_ meant, and come to a conclusion he knew was as accurate as the sun rising and setting each day: _the Colonials are not and never will be our friends_.

Karden breathed in the cool and refreshing air that was circulated by the air conditioning units in the building. But seconds later after he realized his comfort the cool air was revolting and the plentiful food at the luncheon prior to the meeting made his stomach churn. The people were without. Their energy reserves were diverted to factories and mines and their food to the millions fighting at the front. Yet here he was, with the Colonials enjoying their fine foods, expensive wines, and bitterly flat ambrosia. _Where were the supplies you promised for our civilians and where are the power plants you promised would keep our civilians from having to go without? You bring us to the brink of an abyss, the edge of destruction, and yet you think we should thank you for saving us from your own failures. _Karden chewed on his lower lip and grinded his teeth. His eyes were narrowing as he stared at the Colonial Phoenix seal on a document. They 'rose from the ashes' of their Cylon War.

A hand rubbed the rank insignias on his collar. He grasped his class bracelet and studied the writing and ancient symbols. The symbols stood for freedom and duty to the throne and country. But as his eyes feel to the bracelet and his fingers rubbed the ancient symbols and writing he wondered if he were truly devoted to those ideals he swore to uphold. Was he patriot or patsy?

He looked up as the Colonial supreme general, a small man with dark black hair to match his skin, and brown eyes was approaching an important conclusion: "The fighting in Yakana Olort has been far more intense than we realized. Our initial force invaded a week ago but we've made little progress. Two more brigades have been tasked with securing the city and the northern approaches. We'll be deploying another four divisions from the Colonies to Alliance territory within the next month with another three on the way."

It was First General Marin Jan vo Majir, an old colleague of Chetan and his one-time commanding officer who was the first to object. "Seven divisions… that would more than triple your current commitment and all within the next few months…" he was shaking his head, "or, next month? You were planning this from the beginning? Marshal, did you know?" He held his hands out on the table, palms ups as he looked for answers and his eyes begged for the marshal to utter a single word, 'no.'

"The emissary and I discussed this some time ago. It was a possibility that more soldiers would be required if we put… limitations on Colonial involvement."

"Limitations?" First General Marin asked. "What limitations?" His brow furled. He turned to the general. "Your technology is far superior to ours, of that there is no contest. One of your fighters with precision bombs can do more than an entire squadron. Yet you need more soldiers, more soldiers on our soil and our world?"

The general, a man Karden knew by the name of Graphus, canted his head and nodded. "Unless we resort to orbital bombardment we need more soldiers. We already see signs of an insurgency-"

The First General looked taken aback. "But that was _your _insistence to not use orbital weaponry again."

Karden listened by focused on other matters. The first general would argue and Karden was grateful. The first general was a true patriot, one who knew what had to be said and said it without regards to politics. A part of the group captain was sorry Marin was not marshal and commander of all kingdom forces. But he could still speak against the Colonials. His career was heroic, his battle victories numerous and famous. He would be the voice of dissent. And Karden knew that he could continue to help, behind the scenes, and feed the first general as much information as he could.

* * *

Karden rubbed his hands over his face and brought them to his temples and massaged them slowly. The day had been long and he was tired. Hours of sitting listening to briefings had been nerve racking. His legs wanted to _move_ and his mind wanted to _fight_. He was a group captain, a man who'd made his career early in the last war, and even with victory after victory the war in the north was slow and deadly. He hated being stuck in a desk, in an office, in the capital while men died out there fighting to keep _him_safe. That was not how it should've worked.

He was shuffling some papers on Marshal Chetan's desk, organizing them, when the marshal came in, a sour look on his face. He didn't greet Karden and instead went straight for a drink. He tossed in an ice cube and a dash of sugar then poured a deep rust-colored spirit which smelled sweet and filled the room with a bountiful aroma. The marshal undid the top button of his uniform and grasping the drink rested with one hand braced against a pillar on the wall. He sipped.

The marshal let out a sigh.

Karden softly shuffled the last papers and walked around from the back of the desk. His shoulders were back and his eyes sharply focused on the marshal. He was hunched over more. "Is everything alright, sir?"

Marshal Chetan took another drink and turned. "No, Karden, it isn't." He walked back behind his desk and almost threw himself into the chair. "Damnit, you're bound to hear it sooner or later, might as well be from me."

Karden waited but the marshal had swiveled the chair and was staring out into the street and watching the people below. Gun emplacements had been removed from the roofs months ago and while the checkpoints remained throughout the city people were out, cars were moving, and nightlife was alive.

"Sir?"

"The military operates on a chain of command, group captain. Never forget that." Chetan was still staring out the window. "First General Marin was fired… I asked for his resignation today. I'm sure you'll hear rumors as to why."

Group Captain Karden swallowed. His heart thumped in his chest and he could hear its rhythmic beat in his ears. He had a question to ask, one that immediately began hacking at his mind, ordering to be asked:"Because of the Colonials?"

Chetan turned back. He rolled his eyes up at the standing group captain and chief of staff. "The Colonials are our allies… go home. We have an early day tomorrow. Bring in the last reports from the front on your way out."

* * *

**Colonial Fleet Academy**  
**Paestum, Caprica**

* * *

Kara and Karl sat together, tuning out the priests at the front of the temple, as the religious service entered its second hour. Kara glanced over at Karl and jabbed him in the side. He groaned, to the annoyance of a few cadets in front of them, and woke when a finger poked his side again, right between his ribs.

"Ouch." He rubbed his chin, just to make sure he hadn't been drooling.  
"Pay attention. It's almost done." Kara said with a flick of her wrist towards the front. Someone shushed her from behind and she turned to make a face.

Karl batted at his nose. The scent of powerful incense was almost overwhelming. He leaned forward on his seat and wriggled as he tried to keep his ass from falling asleep. His leg was getting a strange pins and needles feel and rubbing it wasn't working so he started to lightly hit it with a fist. Kara shook her head at him.

They were both anxious for the ceremony to be over. Rush. The one day of the year that was second only in importance to graduation and commissioning. Rush. This was the day they found out what their assignments were. The Fleet Academy was always last. Kara and Karl both had friends at the other academies throughout the Colonies and at military programs in civilian schools and they'd all found out a month ago what their jobs would be. For some reason, some person, somewhere, for whatever reason, unknown to any of the midshipmen had decided that Paestum would be the last to know, despite its reputation and position amongst the Fleet academies.

Kara wrinkled her nose as the scent of death began to overpower the incense. A horse had been slaughtered earlier in the ceremony as an offering to the gods. Some other animals had also had their throats split open by the ceremonial daggers one of the priests was now holding over his head, the blood dripping down the blade onto the hilt and down his hand and arm.

She fancied a glance over her shoulder. Some of the commandant's staff had departed, which was a sign the ceremony was nearing an end. They would need to be in position and maintain a watch as the first classmen rushed out to their brigade HQ's and check the assignment rosters. Rush. It was a day that could make or break a midshipman's hopes and dreams. Class rankings, aptitude scores, evaluations from summer training, and a dozen other factors could decide Kara and Karl's futures.

And discipline, too. Kara's neck webbed from the recollection of her discipline record. _Oh, frak me_… she thought and her heart fluttered in her chest and pounded in her ears. A moment's nervousness was interrupted by a reciprocated jab from Karl.

"_…we close in the name of Poseidon, the lord of ships and sea and space. We ask our benevolent lord to watch over our midshipmen and to grant them honor on this auspicious day…"_

Kara had stopped listening. Karl wasn't. Probably all the firsts weren't. A lot were looking back, creeping forward on their seats. Today all the first classmen received official notice of whether or not they got their first choice on their 'wish list' of assignments. Class standing, military aptitude, recommendations, and the last four years of their lives all determined today.

Everyone saw a few members from the commandant's step stand up. They were the one's who'd control and manage the chaos as thousands rushed back to their brigade HQ to find out what MOS they'd been awarded.

The priests finished. The seconds and thirds knew not to stand up as the horde began its charge out of the temple and back to the barracks. It was semi-orderly, with staff and professors on hand to yell at the midshipmen not to run. Some of them walked calmly, staying 'cool' and acting like they were above the excitement of their peers.

Karl and Kara came up to their company display board right about the same time. Karl had to elbow his way in and Kara rode his wake. The paper was written in standard-size and square, blocky font. Someone was reading it out loud.

Both of them got up.

Karl pumped the air. "Raptors!"

Kara's heart skipped. The grin was shit-eating. "Vipers!"

* * *

**Patrol Grid 409-884-Nebula**  
**Viper Patrol, attached to battlestar **_**Hemera**_

* * *

Lee Adama took his hands off his Viper's control and rubbed a cramp in his leg and with that failing, balled a fist and started hitting his thigh until that started to hurt too much.

"You're not beating it over there are you, _Fang_?"

Lee scowled and looked port towards where the high voice had originated. There, maybe fifty meters away and inverted in his pale gray Viper was his wing man, his face illuminated by the dull blue lights of his helmet, and he had a shit eating grin Lee could see with his visor's optics.

"If I was you'd probably've just watched and gotten all excited, _Spoon_." Lee heard laughter over the wireless and _Money Shot_ and _Crud_ started to pile on and give Spoon shit. He grinned and shook his head, though the helmet and flight suit constricted his movement. His eyes darted down at his DRADIS as it completed another scan of another empty piece of backwater space real estate.  
He had two more weeks to prove to the men and women of Viper Squadron N11934, the Hunter Killers that he had what it took to go from rook to accepted junior grade lieutenant in the squadron. Still an ensign his promotion was all but assured, as long as he didn't frak up. Once promoted he'd be awarded the HK's patch of an old submarine- but with Viper wings- to go on his right shoulder while all he wore at the moment was the Phoenix on his left.

The HK's were a young squadron and could only trace their history back to the midpoint in the Cylon war but its pilots had seen some of the fiercest fighting and most destructive battles of the Cylon War, including the Liberation of Tauron campaign. The squadron ready room was adorned with plaques and banners of wartime heroics and accomplishments. Major Ted 'Boob' Denon had been awarded the Medal of Valor, and Boob was the pilot all the senior pilots used as the standard to hold Rooks to.

"I thought we were supposed to watch our intervals?" Lee asked as he nudged his stick and reoriented his Viper to a new heading after hitting a patrol point. The patrol flight did the same.

"Oh, the new guy telling Spoon what to do," Lt. Leslie 'Money Shot' Jaspers taunted, "so you gonna do anything about it, Spoon?" His voice was raspy, due to some old piloting mishap during his Viper school days.

"Sure…" Spoon, Lt. John Meh tapped his stick and the Viper's maneuvering thrusters activated, moving him in closer to Lee's Viper. "How you like them intervals now, Fang?"

Lee's lips formed into a devilish smirk. He looked to Spoon's Viper, calculated its position and just how much he could move in, spook him, and roll away. "How about-" a blip on DRADIS caught his eye. "You guys see that?"

Lt. Mary Crud Joyce chuckled. "I think Fang's scared of asteroids. Maybe he thinks we'll find aliens like his daddy did."

Lee shot a wicked, burning glance over towards the general direction of her Viper, which was too far away to be anything more than a blue-white speck from engine wash. She was always riding him, criticizing what he did, and her pokes were said with the tone of insults, not play, like the rest of the squadron.

She came from some small moon colony on Virgon and for reasons Lee couldn't figure out, hated him. Not just a fake dislike for being that fraking arrogant new guy, but it was hate, just hate.

"I don't think so…" Lee tapped at his flight control panel. DRADIS fluctuated with a moment's burst of interference, going static. "I don't…" his voice was quiet. "We should call it in."

Money Shot ws already on it and came up over the wireless with his raspy voice. "This is Crud to Raptor over watch, we have a contact at approximately six hundred k-klicks, bearing 143 carrim 044."

"Roger that, Money Shot. DRADIS is picking up an object accelerating towards you at 50,000 kay pee es. We're calling in to Actual."

The contact was mid-range, almost fifty thousand kilometers away and Lee's DRADIS linked with the systems aboard the Raptor. Within seconds a picture materialized of the object: it was an arrowhead-like ship, more like an elongated pyramid of sorts. It was goa'uld and Lee's stomach knotted. He'd have preferred Cylons. Cylons were a known. The goa'uld were the growing bogeymen of the Fleet, with their technology and their unnervingly fast space craft.

This contact began to resolve in more detail as both patrol and goa'uld came closer, the challenge already offered, and accepted. Lee knew what was coming. A part of him, but he was still trying to deny it. He began to see red, he began to see blood, he saw himself killing. Not a robot, a machine, but a man. Living flesh. He swallowed as a lump grew in his throat. He swallowed and concentrated, listened to the voice of Spoon as he ordered the young ensign to take a new position.

The goa'uld contact was long, almost seventy-five meters, and larger than the al'kesh Lee thought it resembled. It had a second canon at the apex of the pyramid and two sets of bay doors on its ventral aspect. It's cockpit was set in the same location as the bomber/transport _Valkyrie_had experience with.

"Ov-" Static burst over the wireless. The flight switched to high powered, short-range units to overcome the jamming. "Frak."

"This is Raptor over watch, can you hear me, Money Shot?"

"Coming in loud and clear, over watch, good to hear your voice… now get back home and get us some reinforcements. We can't outrun these sons of bitches so we're engaging."

"Roget that. Good hunting, Money Shot." The Raptor blinked out.

Lee swallowed despite his mouth being completely dry and his lips chapping. The air in his helmet grew hot. His left hand shook and he took it off his controls and balled it into a tight fist. He wet his lips with a quick lick and blinked blurring eyes. His heart knew what was about to happen. He flicked his DRADIS display as it fuzzed briefly. The goa'uld were attempting to blind them. Their Vipers could compensate but it was never a guarantee that they wouldn't adapt.

The goa'uld craft slowed impossibly quick and opened a ventral hanger bay. Six small ships were quickly ejected, one after the other.

They had to survive. Two minutes. Just two fraking minutes. The battlestar could be spooled and jumped in two minutes.

"What the frak? Some sort of new death gliders… and they're in an attack formation! The carrier ship is holding station. Frak… all Vipers, weapons free!"

The gliders were smaller, with shorter wing spans, and a slightly wider fuselage. They were fast, too, as fast as any Viper, and had far greater acceleration.

"Alright, Fang, follow my lead, take position, watch your intervals," Spoon said, his voice somber. There wasn't a reply. "Fang… Lee-"

"Yes?"

"Watch your intervals; don't hold down the big red fire button… controlled bursts. And you'll come out of this alive. Stick with me, Lee."

"I can't get missile lock," Crud said.

"Those gliders are throwing out interference like I've never seen," Money Shot responded as Lee was trying to cycle through DRADIS bands. Each was fuzzy, soupy, and giving inaccurate information. "We gotta get to close range, gun range; we'll have a better chance of avoiding the optics getting burned out by their lasers."

Lee and Spoon formed up with Money Shot and Crud taking positions on their port side, three kilometers away and half a kilometer above them. The Viper group accelerated towards their targets, closer and closer, until the gliders fired at extreme range, their plasma bolts going wide and high and low as the Viper dove and rose and maneuvered.

The gliders closed and swooped in and tore into the Viper formation, causing the four to break their own. Money Shot fired the first missile, which veered off as the gliders threw up more intense electronic interference. The missile exploded near the glider and the enemy fighter's shields flared, releasing blue-gray bursts of static electricity, but the glider continued almost completely unharmed.

"Command never said they'd have shields like these." Money Shot . "We're going to have to double it."

Money Shot pulled the hard six and fired two missiles point blank into a glider, which knocked out its shields and caused it to tumble. His canons into the momentarily unprotected hull of the glider, shredding its armor and ripping open its reactor casing. The glider exploded and was consumed by the brilliance of a red-orange fireball which quickly faded to a residual glow of hot metal in the vacuum.

Lee spun his Viper and hit his maneuvering thrusters as a glider came in from under him. Spoon broke off, cut his acceleration and fired a burst of canon fire into the glider and his bullets smashed into the shields but didn't penetrate. The blue static shield hits glistened in Lee's eye as he took a pot shot at the glider. Money Shot and Crud came around, two gliders on their tails, but finished off Lee's with two quick missiles.

The battle was a series of four small battles, each with one combatant per side. Plasma bolts lit the deep blackness and missiles were small suns as they exploded.

Crud's Viper retook position and Lee fired at one of the four remaining gliders, hoping, praying, just wishing that his canon and missile fire would take it down. The missile detonated behind the glider and did no damage. A follow-up strike with his canons barely brushed the starboard wing tip of the glider. One round penetrated and pocketed the wing with a deep black gash and a small armored panel tumbled away, but the glider jetted forward and dove, apparently unharmed. Lee followed; firing canons as Spoon covered him and kept a second glider from come in behind or below Lee.

Spoon was forced to break off when the glider he'd been chasing dove, did a circle, and then came right up at him. Lee saw him able to maneuver his Viper starboard just the instant as a wave of plasma bolts washed through space at his prior location, with Spoon answering the attack with canon fire, and with the goa'uld breaking off, Spoon hot on his tail.

"Frak, Money Shot's gone!" Crud yelled over the wireless. "Frak! Two're on me!"

Spoon went to help Crud, managing to get both gliders to break off and allowed Crud to come around and join with Spoon. They stalked the two gliders, firing canons, maneuvering, and tried to gain ground and close distance.

Lee bit down and narrowed his eyes until the glider in front of him became the sole focus of his attention. It was the one that'd tried that near suicidal front-on-front attack on Spoon. He fired once and again, his bullets nipping at the gliders shields. Then suddenly his eyes opened wide, iris dilated and ears rung with a DRADIS warning that a glider had dropped down on his tail and was painting him with targeting sensors. It began to fire as Lee bobbed his Viper and threw out chaff and jitters to throw off the lock. Lee twirled his Viper and raised the nose and hit his turbos. He was thrust in the back of his seat, felt his breath escape, and a moment later, a heartbeat, an eye blink, a dozen plasma bolts shot past where he had been.

"Frak…" he whispered and cursed himself. He threw his error into the back of his mind, locking it tight, and concentrated on the big picture: each of his mates were occupied, there was one more glider than there was them, and he was being chased. An opportunity presented itself. He had a plan. A plan he thought off as he was being fired at, his life was being threatened, and only a few seconds after death had almost embraced him. He could hear his heart beating in his chest and thumping in his ears.

Ensign Adama hit the turbos one last time and pulled the vaunted hard six and fired at the glider. A swift burst, no more than a dozen canon rounds, and a wild shot missile without a lock almost hit but was shot down by the also-lucky glider pilot and Lee set the trap. Pulling another hard six, coming full circle he rose the nose of the Viper and then turned to port. He fired at the glider he'd been chasing, which was now firing on Spoon, and earned its murderous intentions.

Lee picked his target and prayed to every god he knew of that he could goad it. Maneuvering and avoiding his pursuer he opened fire on the one that had launched that brazen, nearly suicidal charge at Spoon. His canons fired and fired, pinging the glider's shields until they failed. His ammo counter flashed on his HUD and the glider banked, his last burst hitting nothing but empty space. He fired a missile.

He missed.

But he'd done his job. The glider turned quickly and began heading right at him. He ejected the last of his chaff and set his last jitters to emit interference. He fired one more missile. He tapped his maneuvering thrusters and threw himself into perfect position. One second, then two, he overrode all safeties and slowed, a bolt almost slicing his wingtip in two and he let the rear glider close to within mere hundreds of meters and in that last moment hit his turbo and blinded the glider behind him, pulled a hard six, blinded the glider that had been in front of him, and as the glider's shield scraped his hull shot away at the last possible second.

The plan had been for both gliders to smash into each other. They each banked, one sheered its wing and began to spin wildly out of control. The other had a blackened, cratered gash on its portside fuselage that was sparking and spitting out fluids and debris.

Lee's Viper wailed every alarm known and unknown and he heard sounds and buzzers he didn't even know his Viper had. The computer was a mess and a fuel line indicator light was blinking rapidly. He checked DRADIS: the last glider was limping away, back to the carrier. His teeth rubbed and an emergency shut off disengaged the fuel from his engines and he was floating, with little more than emergency thrusters. He restarted the engines and his computer and the screen was filled with warning indicators. His entire belly had had the armor stripped away, a missile hard point on his wingtip had been sheared off, and the electronics fraked to hell from the shield's strange electro-static discharges from impact.

"Spoon… Spoon…" Lee said softly into the wireless. There were no more hostile DRADIS contacts. "Spoon-" He checked DRADIS again, looked up left and right, inverted his Viper, and looked left and right again. He tapped on the DRADIS controls. He pushed a warm restart and DRADIS blinked off and back on.

He was alone. He set his attention to the fleeing glider and made that his sole mission. He would avenge his squad mates and kill the Jaffa son of a bitch.

Lee's Viper came in close. He detected the buildup of exotic energy particles and knew the carrier was going to flee. He hit his turbo for one last hurrah and as he was pushed back into his seat his engines went out. Lee was at an incredibly velocity and wit the damage to his fighter his anti-gee compensators were fritzing. He felt the gee-forces like he never had.

The glider slowed and its wing folded. A claw extended downwards and had the glider in its grasp. Lee could just barely see it with his HUD's magnification. The carrier began to fire, thick and menacing bolts flew past. One grazes his wing tip and melted an avionics sensor.

He fired his maneuvering jets and angled the Viper down. The carrier couldn't maneuver, and he was out of sight of its apex plasma canon. He came back up with a tap of his controls, still with an incredibly velocity, and he felt his vision blurring… one more… second… and the plasma canon hit him and he began to lose control of the Viper. Quickly, he jammed his controls over and his maneuvering jets fired. His master alarm was yelling at him, telling him to immediately eject.

Lee fired his last two missiles at the glider as it retracted into the landing bay. One missile fired first- his firing systems were nearly destroyed and his computer dead- followed by the second missile. The first hit the shielded section of the carrier, and the shields flared, taunted him in their brilliant shine. But then the final missile hit, slammed into the glider as the bay doors closed and the bay exploded.

But the ship remained. The carrier still lived even as it spewed fire and debris into the endless black expanse.

The young ensign, bruised and bleeding flicked his wrist. The Viper turned, Lee ejected, and the Viper slammed into the carrier. The resulting explosions destroyed both Viper and goa'uld ship.

As Lee floated he watched through a bloodied helmet his eyes glowed with the oranges, the reds, and blues and greens from exploding tyllium, plasma expansions, and every exotic weapon and power generator that ship had used. He was smiling.

The most magnificent blue-white flash appeared in front of him. "Ensign Adama…"

He closed his eyes and floated, serene and peaceful, alive.

* * *

**Eluuria**

* * *

Group Captain Karden had found himself in a daze for the last few weeks, a sort of walking sleep where he interacted and talked, but thought himself separate from his body. The only things keeping him grounded were the realities of everyday life and his duty. _Duty, duty duty, I do mine, I will_… he thought, over and over. He paced in front of a café and stopped under a tree. The faint noise of birds chirping angrily at a light rain was nature's musical distraction from a mind clouded with doubts.

"Karden."

The group captain turned and pulled at the light jacket and hood the rain had afforded him the opportunity to wear. He hated rain but was pleased he could walk about with little concern focused on being recognized.

"Juren." The two men shook hands with firm grips. Juren motioned for them to get out of the drizzle. "It's good to see you my friend," Karden said with a smile and for the first time in weeks he felt relaxed. "I'm glad you were able to meet me so quickly."

"My soldiers and I had a respite. We have four weeks in Kana City before we head north again. So it's good that you called. I was going to come to the capital anyway if you didn't, see if you…"

Karden's chin dimpled and he nodded knowingly. Kana was a medium sized Sirisi city eighty kilometers north of the border and once a major air base. Now it stood occupied. For a moment Karden hesitated, he turned away and then back, and he saw his friend looking at him with soft, understanding eyes.

"I know why you called me. You've seen it. Their influence… it took time, but I knew you would. Something's changed, hasn't it? Don't answer yet. I think I know… but it could shock you." Juren's voice was low and compassionate."I'm glad you met me here though. I have someone you should meet, someone who can help us and give us answers."

The two men walked for blocks, turning into alleys and reappearing back on the main road. They caught a taxi to the western side of the city, passed old buildings and abandoned storefronts- tough economic times last decade had forced many small family businesses in Ganasholyk to close and never reopen- and into office building and warehouse districts. The taxi ride was quiet and when the two men exited their five minute walk was just as quiet, which Karden both relished and regretted. He wanted to say so much.

The rain had stopped and puddles of water mixed with the runoff of oil and gasoline had formed in the gutters. Karden walked as his eyes followed the swirling patterns of gasoline-stained waters. He could smell sweat breads baking somewhere nearby in bakeries that supplied local restaurants, located in this area so far from the upscale eateries due to cheap rent and wide streets for trucks.

There was a man outside a building that alarmed Karden and caused him to tense and slow his walk. His eyes studied the man, who tried not looking at him, but was doing a poor job of making himself inconspicuous as he pretended to wait for a bus. His clothes also made him appear to be the type of person who wouldn't be caught dead on a bus.

"We're here," Juren said. He waved over the man, who jogged across the street. "He's one of ours, Karden."

The soldier's eyes narrowed and his head cocked. "One of 'ours', Juren?"

The old friend turned slowly and looked off at an angle at first before meeting Karden's eyes. "There's more than one of us." He grasped his friend on the shoulders and shook in a friendly way. "This didn't just happen, Karden. There's been resistance to the emissary for years and this, these people, have been brought together by the truth-"

"Truth of what? What truth?"

"That the Colonials are slavers, murders, liars. Come with me."

They went through an entrance with a wooden door but Karden noticed it was metal on the inside. Not thick, but thick enough to stop bullets and with deadbolts, invulnerable to smash-and-break entrances. As they walked down a narrow hallway they turned left, walked a few more steps, and then began their descent. It was quick and they were in a large basement which had been partitioned into separate rooms and had bright lights nestled in yellow cones strung on the ceiling.

There were security keyboards buried into the walls Karden was completely unfamiliar with. And out of nowhere almost a half dozen guards holding powerful automatic weaponry had appeared. There was one man, tall, dark skinned with a shaved head who eyed him, and he felt a shiver, like a ghost out of some bad fairy tale had just brushed against him. His neck hair stood on edge and he swallowed. He wanted to asked Juren what was happening but the soldier had his back to him and was walking quickly.

"We're almost there," he said to Karden as he kept walking.

The basement was larger than Karden had thought it would be and much larger than the building they were in. And the floor they'd been walking on, the hallway, had begun to slope, and he was positive they were walking further and further underground and to which direction, north or south, east or west or in between he had no idea.

Water dripped ominously from an overhead pipe. A light blinked. He wondered if it was on purpose. And he was wondering what it was he'd gotten himself into when they stopped in front of a metal door with a keypad.

"Where are we?" Karden asked. He heard his voice echo and he cringed. Even so far from the capital, so far underground, he felt like soldiers would come rushing down, ready to arrest him and throw him against a wall and execute him.

Juren had input a command while Karden had been worried and distracted. The door clicked open and Juren opened. He stepped inside and invited Karden in. "We're here to get help. You came because you know the Colonials will take us over and conquer us. Marin's proof of that. You know why no one has heard from him…" Juren ticked his head to the right. The room was dim but Karden could see the table and chairs in the center, the bookcases on the left hand side, a computer terminal on the right with two assault rifles laying against it, and a small door one person could fit through on the opposite end of the room. Juren had walked to the table and ushered Karden over. "You haven't heard from the first general because he's been killed. Murdered… _assassinated_." Juren jabbed his finger at the picture.

His fellow soldier grabbed the single photo which had been reprinted a dozen times and stacked. He saw Marin with a bullet through his head and a pool of blood.

"Whyyyyy!"

"Because he was going to go public with all he knew of the deal that the marshal and emissary had made. He was looking into their dealings. He was investigating them. And they had him killed. The Colonials had him removed from his position and then killed."

Karden had turned. "I don't believe it."

"Why not?" A new voice appeared from behind. Karden snapped back around and saw a shilouette in the small doorway on the far side of the room. "Why not?" He repeated.

"What benefit… why… what point…" Karden was struggling for words.

"You don't know how the Colonials think. I do. They would gladly order the murder of some… Eluurian if it meant serving a purpose. And that purpose is the naquadah. They want it. They need it and to mine it they need to control your planet."

"The emissary just gave them the site."

"Not enough!" The figure stepped forward but was still shrouded. "You don't understand what these people will do, what they can do if they want something bad enough." Karden saw the man's fists opening and closing. "They will kill anyone to maintain their monopoly on power. Your first general challenged them, much like some have in the recent past, and they killed him just like they have those who have challenged them before."

"How can I know you're telling me truths? This sounds fantastic!" Karden protested.

"Truth? I know this intimately." The man stepped into the light. He was old, wearing all black, but his eyes shone with a fire and a passion that forced Karden to mentally retreat. "I fought the Colonials fifty years ago… I was one of the first. They killed many of us…. And all we wanted was our freedom." He turned around and brought his hand up and flicked it. "He's a group captain. He's chief of staff. He will due, Juren."

"What does that mean?" Karden asked, taking a reflexive step back. "Juren?" He turned. His friend was staring at him. It made Karden uneasy. The look in his friend's eye. "Juren?"

A fist appeared as a blur and struck him in the side of the face, disorienting him. He struggled to talk when a second fist landed a heavy blow in his solar plexus. He gasped for breath and almost collapsed when two sets of heavy hands grasped him, their grips like vices, firm and strong. Karden heard something behind set down in the room and he was pushed back into a chair. His feet were bound to the legs and his wrists to the arm rests.

"Juren… what… what…" he sucked in a breath and panted for oxygen, "what are you doing?" Karden's face wrinkled as he struggled against the restrains but hands on his shoulders kept him still.

The older man turned back and came towards him, his boots clicking softly on the cool and dusty concrete floor. The man leaned forward, his wrinkly fingers flexed in front of Karden's face. His smile was evil and Karden cursed him. He saw the man pull a small syringe-like device from his pocket. There was a small vial on the edge, filled with milky black fluid. The old man, with a strength that defied his age pushed back his head and exposed his neck. Karden fought. He tried to kick. But he couldn't break the grip.

Karden felt a pinch before blacking out.


	21. Chapter 21

AN: Sorry for the big delay. I'm going to try smaller chapters of 1 to 2 perspective characters. Hopefully that will get chapters out at a quicker pace.

* * *

The Tok'ra, Marteen

* * *

At his first blending Marteen had been forced to take a host; he could remember the fear and horror, the confusion, the dread as his mind began to pierce and probe that of his new host. The sensations of a human body had overwhelmed him, the wind on his skin, and the breath in his lungs. His first had been a young boy, just seventeen, who'd just fathered his first child on a primitive world on the far reaches of the vast Goa'uld Empire, but a world that was now long dead. Bombarded.

During his birth Marteen had awoken to the calls of his mother, the queen Egeria. She had asked him for forgiveness. Forgiveness that she could not rid him of the vileness of the goa'uld, forgiveness that she could not save him from the sin he would be forced to undertake to survive.

He was a parasite. They all were.

As one of the first tok'ra, he had no choice but to take an unwilling host. There was no Tok'ra High Council, no resistance against Ra, no network to recruit willing hosts to blend with a tok'ra, and feel the wholeness of a blending. There were only slaves and lotars.

The young boy, Marteen would never forget. He couldn't. Karlaran'ka of the primitive world of Durganash. It had been a world of radiant rain forests, clear blue oceans, and plenty. Ra had settled slaves from Earth and bred them into impressive, warrior stock.

On the blending Kalaran- his family had called him that- struggled and fought as the fears and horrors of the blending overwhelmed him. Marteen had felt the young man's mind slip further and further into the abyss an unwilling blending could cause. Marteen had tried his best, he had tried to tell the man he didn't want this, but he struggled. So young, inexperienced, and still with many of the goa'uld's disgusting genetic memories he had forced his mind on that of Karlaran in an attempt to only quiet him.

Just to quiet him.

_But I killed him_, Marteen thought. _And I will kill them all_. He looked at the goa'uld around him as they ate, engaged in their hedonistic debauchery, gambled the lives of their slaves away- slaves with hopes, dreams of freedom- and planed the destruction of worlds to fulfill their petty fantasies of revenge, conquest, and control.

"You should smile."

Marteen closed his eyes and slowly turned his head to face the beautiful woman on his arm. Kiva, his Lucian, the woman who had come half a galaxy away to pose as his slave and mistress smiled back at him. She was his rival and his competitor, yet a partner.

She was quite breathtaking, in the golden-red, immodest gown he had procured for her. The amulet about her neck and the thick bracelets studded with jewels and gems were his displays of success in the Imperial Palace, of his rise as one of Sokar's goa'uld minions. Her skin had also been painted at the exposed shoulders with subdued hues of olive greens and blues, and small dots had been painted under and around her eyes.

"Only when I think of their fate," he whispered back. There was a glimmer of a smirk on the lucian's lips, a crack of anticipated satisfaction.

"Much longer?" She smiled.

"No. Soon."

Kiva tugged at a part of the gown. "I feel… like a street slut walking the alleys of Ir Ibas, Marteen."

"Their eyes are on you," he whispered in his ear. His hot breath sent a reflexive smirk across Kiva's lips. "Don't tell me you don't enjoy this." He let his eyes start at her foot, clad in gold lace sandals, and rake up the rest of her body. He felt slightly aroused- or Nyklos did- despite the dark thoughts and his brooding.

Kiva licked her lips, and let her tongue linger on the corner. "I'll enjoy the results." She leaned in closer. No one was or would pay attention to what they said. Any eyes on her were directed towards her breasts, her legs, not her mouth, not her words. "Have you contacted them?"

"I plan to meet a contact in the market, soon."

Marteen stopped, smiled, and chuckled, trying to match his mood and emotions with the goa'uld around him. It was a party. For some. He stopped as a slave brought a plate of food. He took a little, as did Kiva. She played her part well as she looked disdainfully at the human slave, half-naked, with her breasts hanging loose and her arms painted in gold and crimson. The five pointed star of Sokar adorned her banded head dress. Kiva dismissed the slave with a flick of her wrist.

The two ate little, and moved from point to point. Goa'uld by their nature were fiercely competitive, ready to backstab a 'friend', yet were strangely, almost illogically social. Tok'ra operatives had often assumed it was due to their genetic desire for power; how better a way could there be than to learn the secrets, the passions, and the weakness of others than through trusted friendships? Marteen's eyes swept over Kiva's backside. _What would it take for me…_ he wondered, but was distracted by the banging of drums and the slamming of staffs onto the marble floor.

Slaves entered, half naked, chained at the throat and shackled on the hands. They were smiling, decorated with makeup and eye liner and lipstick, and their bodies oiled. The way the dozens walked he could see they'd been drugged, just enough to make it… _fun_, for the goa'uld. No matter the ruse the body attempted the eyes only betrayed the physical.

Marteen saw his goa'uld mistress enter. "Mektpa."

Mektpa considered Kiva for a mere moment. A condescending snort was all the Lucian spy and assassin warranted in the eyes of this particular goa'uld. She looked Marteen in the eyes. Her eyes glided slowly towards Kiva, followed by her head. "And where are you from, human?"

Kiva glanced down respectfully. "I am from Lucia."

"A dreadful, primitive world, is it not?"

"Mostly," Kiva responded. Marteen could see her tense.

"Leave her here. My slave will keep her company." Mektpa motioned to a tall, muscled man standing half dozen steps behind her. He nodded his understanding to her. "Come with me, now." She turned on her heels. Her crimson and blue dress fluttered and her heels clinked on the polished marble of the hall.

Marteen was quick to catch her. "And where are we going?"

"I've taken our work and presented them to one who would… _appreciate_ them," she said, turning just barely to talk over her shoulder. "Your help in the program was considerable. I did not betray your trust. We will be advanced together."

He let his hand brush hers. "I didn't doubt you, Mektpa."

There was a break in her voice as she responded. "It's… pleasing to know that."

"We will rise quickly, together."

"We shall," she whispered back. "Come, quickly, he does not have much time."

Marteen and Mektpa quickly entered the secured areas of the palace, passed the Dashmed and Necropolis Guard, through secure chambers, and finally entered into a smaller stone chamber, with tapestries on the walls, and large holographic displays on the far end, running up to a raised platform of polished red and black marble. There were pieces of small furniture hugging the walls, and the right of the room was dominated by a large table with one chair at its head, and three per side. There was a goblet and wine jug present and a small tray of food. Goa'uld computer tablets were messily arranged near the head of the table.

He recognized the goa'uld standing with his back to them, studying the holodisplay of the galaxy and he felt a surge of loathing, hatred, and fear run through his spine. Marteen's head cocked just slightly and his eyes looked away for a moment's respite.

Mektpa went to a knee, and Marteen followed.

The tok'ra recognized Neberatu by his silhouette from the glowing reds and blues and greens of the holodisplay. Few could mistake the imposing, tall figure of Neberatu for any other goa'uld. Marteen caught the faint glimmer of gold as the light reflected off a kara kesh.

Neberatu was drumming his fingers on the metal side of the holodisplay, his other hand grasping a computer tablet that was held to his thigh. A second goa'uld of _salatis_ rank stood by his side and took the tablet when the goa'uld general held it out.

The Voice of the Dominion turned. The torchlight glittered on the gold-crimson armor he wore and contrasted sharply with his eyes, which were black as coal, windows to a darker, more frightening place. Marteen did not dare look his superior directly in the eye. And even with the many victories he held against the goa'uld, the countless centuries of deception, he felt waves of dread flow through him as the daunting figure stood over him and Mektpa and rumors of the goa'uld's martial prowess surfaced in Marteen's concerns.

The Voice as he appeared to the people of the Dominion was far different than as the general and military leader he presented to the two now. His armor, while magnificently fashioned, was practical, and he wore a small energy pistol of a personal design at his side, not the imprecise and clumsy zat'nik'tel so many of his contemporaries preferred. Marteen could just barely discern small, concealed shield emitters in his belt.

He stood with arms folded. "Rise." Mektpa and Marteen did so. "The modifications proposed to our communications protocols are… impressive." He unfolded his arms and stepped forward. "We tested the new protocols and found them most secure. You have worked to secure our lines of communications from interception and decoding by our enemies. You will both be rewarded for your service to Lord Sokar."

Marteen and Mektpa immediately went back down to a knee. "Service to Lord Sokar is our reward, is our purpose."

Neberatu walked forward, passed them both, and laid a hand on their shoulders. Again, the two rose. "Nevertheless, you will both be rewarded. Our Lord Sokar is grand in his rewards, and copious in his gifts." The goa'uld continued on a circuit around them both. "Markanr, how were such skills missed?"

"I was not privileged to be a part of Lord Sokar's court until recently," Marteen said with humbled voice.

"Yes, a refugee from Merinkum. Why did you not return to Lord Yu?"

"My lord, Yu rewarded loyalty with betrayal. He did nothing as Cronus's ha'tak's bombarded my world and slaughtered my family, and murdered my queen. Cronus may have killed them, but Yu did nothing. His jaffa pursued me to many worlds until Rhadmet took me into his services some years ago. Mektpa and I combined our talents to aide in the assurance of our Lord Sokar's impending victory over the false System Lords."

The Voice scoffed. "Then Rhadmet has one success to come out of a sad and pathetic existence." Marteen lowered his head. "Amosk," he gestured to the other goa'uld by his side, "will see to your promotions and rewards. You will-"

There was a commotion at the chamber's entrance. A Necropolis Guardsman was halted by the chamber's Necropolis Guard and challenged. Marteen and Mekpta glanced back; curious over what would be so important, what would demand the immediate attention of Neberatu. The hairs on Marteen's neck rose. His skin was prickled with Goosebumps. Was he discovered? Could the virus Marteen had worked so hard and long to encode and hide in the new protocols be discovered? He could see his head on a pike, his eyes gouged out and sockets bleeding, as his eyeless head stared into the fire pits of the palace.

The guardsman came quickly, holding a goa'uld data pad. His right hand was burned, and a deep, long healed gash was on his cheek. He bowed and fell to one knee. "My lord, forgive the intrusion. I arrive with pressing news from the front lines."

"Then rise and speak," the goa'uld commanded. The guardsman came forward and whispered. Neberatu began to smirk and looked back to Marteen and Mektpa. "Rejoice, Markanr, for the man responsible for your world's destruction has been killed. Cronus is dead."

* * *

Marteen and Kiva had descended from the palace into the great markets of the capital city Sarqara. They'd taken a foot cart, which had been propelled by two well-conditioned human slaves. A week of celebration over Cronus's death had just ended and the streets were beginning to clear as Delmak's residents returned to their factories and training. In celebration some few slaves had been freed- a reward for their loyalty- and many others and prisoners had been forced to fight to the death in the coliseums dotting Delmak.

Both tok'ra and lucian had gone to the games. Most of the palace had. In one grand finale battle thousands of jaffa, human, and alien prisoners had fought with swords, spears, daggers, tridents, and every other type of stabbing or slashing weapon every devised. The arena's floor had been left soaked with blood and entrails and limbs. The crowds were jubilant. The crowds were greeted at the exits with baskets filled with food, and money, and credits. Gifts. From Sokar.

Fireworks had gone on late into the night as the entire planet celebrated, as if the war had been won and the System Lords would soon be capitulating to Sokar, who would ascend to the rank of Supreme System Lord. That thought turned Marteen's stomach, and he let Nyklos's hatred flow through him, motivate him, and drive him on to complete his mission.

The tok'ra knew Sokar had few obstacles in his path to victory now. His fleets and industry had recovered from Netu's explosion, the planet was secure, and his mighty warships were rearming and resupplying in orbit and he would be reinforcing the front with fresh jaffa and plentiful battalions of slaves to whittle down his enemies.

The two milled about the market, picking up and inspecting trinkets from across the galaxy. Strange devices the vendors tried to hawk as cures for unknown ailments, treasures claimed to be recovered from the fortune chests of the traitor Egeria herself, and everything from fine fabrics from the Bashal Veil to wines and spices from Ferin Prime. If something could be sold, it would be sold in any of the thousands of kiosks and stands.

Marteen stopped at one stall. There was a particularly ugly vase he began to eye, one decorated in repugnant greens, yellows, and shades of purple. It had four, sloppily made handles, with a chip on one. The vendor, a man weathered with age, gray long hair, and loose, pale skin clapped his hands. "Master goa'uld, you are gazing upon the last in a collection belonging to the renowned and fear Third Warlord of Jerah! That very vase you gaze upon was in his palace, before the mighty forces of the Great Ra vanquished him."

"The Third Warlord of Jerah?" Marteen questioned, picking up the vase. "Do you take me for a fool? He was killed before Lord Ra even ascended to System Lord, by Thoth, before his Conquest of Verna. This wouldn't be worthy to sit in the palace of an unas."

The old man nodded, and held out his hands for the vase. Marteen examined it, turned it over, and handed it back. "Perhaps my master goa'uld would prefer to see something from the time of the Great Apep? Before the Second Dynasty? Jewels? We have a mighty ruby, perhaps your devoted concubine would like to try it on?" A yellow-toothed smile towards Kiva was meant with a repugnant glare from the lucian. He gestured back into a squat, two-floor building made of red brick. "I have it in my home, if you so wish…"

"Only a thief would dare claim to have relics from the time of Atok." He turned to Kiva, who had been at his side. "This man attempts to extort from a god."

The old man bowed. "My master goa'uld, I do nothing of the sort, with respect." He motioned behind his stall, to his home. "Perhaps if you would come with me, I could show you the ruby? It is a rare find, indeed." He looked up. Marteen gestured with two flicks of his hand. "Please, follow." He bowed and walked backwards and snapped at a feathery alien to watch his kiosk.

Marteen and Kiva entered the home, on alert, and on guard. Marteen felt the adrenaline pump through Nyklos's body, and he could feel the hairs on his neck rise. Kiva was walking slowly to his right, a step behind, and scanning the room. One of her hands was in his cloak, undoubtedly clutched on a pistol.

"_Marteen_."

The tok'ra operative turned to his left, towards his name and the familiar voice. His name was both greeting and a judgment. Out of a side room Marteen felt the presence of another symbiote. Out stepped another tok'ra, followed by a woman wearing the dulled and dirty garb of a factory tech worker.

The woman was tall, and beautiful, and her hair tied into a braided ponytail. There was a tattoo on her left cheek: a circle with a line at the bottom, and four parallel hash marks. On the right was a smaller symbol, small half-circles. The marking told him she was from the Hadran Confederacy, a world hundreds of light years away, and a world which had been sworn to Sokar's service for generations. Her nails were grimy.

Marteen went to embrace the tok'ra. "Malek. It has been some time, old friend."

Malek's lip curled up in a condescending smile. "'Old friend', Marteen? The High Council wanted me to deactivate you. But I spoke in your defense."

There was a laugh. "Before Egeria breathed life into you, Malek, they've wanted me gone. They like to…" he shrugged, "complain, but they rarely complain about my _results_, friend." His eyes moved to the woman. "And you are?"

Malek took a half step in front of the woman. "The contact." He gestured back.

"The Colonial?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. Of course she was. The woman nodded and stepped forward. She had her hands by her side and Marteen saw a relaxed and confident operative and a mirror image of himself in the distant, steely eyes of the woman. Under the grime on her face and the dirt on her hands she was beautiful. "Malek has undoubtedly informed you of Cronus's defeat?"

"He has," she answered. "And he told us you were planning something 'extensive' when it came to Sokar."

"Good." There was a short pause from Marteen. "Then I want you to understand this: once Sokar is done with the other goa'uld, he will attack you, and he will kill you. He will burn your planets, destroy your cities, and enslave every survivor. Do you understand?"

The woman looked back at Malek. "You didn't tell me he was so dramatic." She looked back at Marteen lazily. "We understand the threat the goa'uld pose to us."

"Do you?" Kiva asked her tone accusatory. "Where were you a century ago when Ra rampaged through the Binary Systems? Where were you a generation ago when Yu conquered the Eastern Star Confederacy? Where were you a decade ago when Axios Three fell to Ba'al?" Kiva's eyes narrowed and she crossed her arm. She scoffed. "You didn't even know a galaxy outside the Traverse _existed_."

Malek growled. "Their past is no concern to you, _lucian_, and the daughter of a _criminal_ would be wise to remember her place, especially one from a planet which supplies soldiers and ships to the goa'uld for money." His eyes flashed. "There is a reason why lucians are distrusted." That was directed towards Marteen.

Marteen put up his hands and silenced them. "Argument awards us nothing but malice and distrust. Malek told you what I do?" The Colonial nodded. "And you're prepared to do what is necessary to destroy the threat Sokar poses to us and the galaxy?"

"Our government is willing… with the right opportunity."

The tok'ra let his eyes fall to the ground as he thought. Ideas and plans raced through his mind. He saw failure and success, and planned for both. He hadn't survived for thousands of years by trusting people so lightly or including more than a handful necessary to carry out his plans.

He was good, excellent at improvising, and well aware of his talents. He considered how a mission to find missing tau'ri- a people he had little care for- had transformed into a undertaking which could end Sokar's unification war.

But he hesitated.

_We saw the reports, Marteen,_ Nyklos interjected, disrupting the tok'ra's thoughts, _and what is the worst that could happen to the Colonials? _

_They could all die._

_Everyone dies,_ Nyklos responded coolly.

_It could be a massacre._

Nyklos answered: _They are a means to an end, my friend._

The tok'ra nodded to himself. "Kiva and I have worked these many months to infiltrate the palace hierarchy." He directed his attention towards the Colonial. "Communications… I can shut them down on a moment's notice. And a protocol embedded within the computer core from the upgrades can disrupt their sensor nets. I was considering letting Cronus or Ba'al or Yu discover the flaw I inserted into Sokar's sensor and com nets, but you…" he pointed at the Colonials, "may be better able to take advantage of the situation." His words were tense.

_Do you think they can destroy the System Lords? _Marteen asked his host, his thoughts cloudy.

_They could at least distract them and give us the opportunity to finally destroy them… a threat of the Colonial's size could force the System Lords to meet at Hasara. We could kill them all._

_Ambitious, Nyklos_, the tok'ra mused. _Alright…_

"You can trust them, Marteen," Malek said with a nod towards the Colonial woman.

"If you give us the data, we'll examine it, make a decision. You want Sokar dead, captured, what?"

Marteen nodded. "Dead." He handed her a small leather satchel. Inside were a communication device and a tablet. "Kill Sokar and his amuntan will fight each other for control and his empire will collapse. Perhaps his three viceroys will blame each other."

"Free Jaffa?" Malek asked.

"Some," Marteen confirmed. He had a thoughtful look as his chin dimpled. "But don't rely on them. You two should go. Colonial, inform your superiors. When a decision is made, Malek will inform me, and I'll be ready. There are a few more minor… considerations… that require my attention."

The Colonial grasped the communication orb tightly. "We'll be in touch."

Malek stepped forward and grasped Marteen's hand. "I've never liked it when you've said things needed your 'attention'… it always ends in big explosions." There was a smirk on Malek's face, and a small twitch on Marteen's that hinted back to that friendship.

Marteen nodded. "Be safe."

He and Kiva turned and left through the front, while Malek and the Colonial left from the rear.

* * *

The gravity engines of the tel'tak hummed quietly, and Marteen leaned back in the comfortable co-pilots chair to collect his thoughts and he felt his body relax in the warmth and humidity of the cockpit. He closed his eyes yet was aware of everyone in the cockpit. His ears were sharp. He listened to the rhythmic hum of the engines and let it put his turbulent mind at east. There was a clicking from the pilot's chair that forced Marteen to open an eye.

"Do I disturb you, tok'ra?"

Marteen turned to face the lizard-like alien, its skin glistening in the pale light of the shuttle. Its hard eyes latched onto Marteen's and he clicked his teeth. What little hair the alien had bristled. "No." He pushed himself up in his seat. "We just don't like being around… fleets…" The tok'ra assassin gestured towards the traffic-clogged region of space, high above Delmak. He shifted. A death glider had taken a position just to their port side and flew with them for some kilometers until it turned into a hanger bay.

He kept an eye on Tarapah's hand claws as the alien flew the tel'tak.

"What concerns you?"

The tok'ra kept his eyes focused on the imposing hull of the command ship. It bristled with gun batteries and shield emitters, and its armor was thick. A ship like this was needed at the front, even with Cronus's death, but he could see the deep pits and scarring from battle. Part of the hull had been opened and a massive replacement energizer unit was being slowly installed through a huge access hatch.

The command ship had been forced to return for repairs, and as the tel'tak came around a support scaffold, Marteen could see hundreds of repair drones and the small, insignificant figures of suited repair crew.

The command ship was a ser'tak, not as large as the one Sokar commanded his fleet from, but it easily out massed and outgunned a ha'tak by at least half a dozen to ten times over. It was a designed to kill the mainstay ha'tak mother ships of the goa'uld armadas.

"How did you get the codes? It would've taken me months to modify Mektpa's program without the lock codes."

Tarapah hissed. "There are ways. I delivered victories to Sokar, and trust was earned. He believes…." Tarapah didn't finish the thought; instead he pretended to get distracted by something on the instrument panel. He held up his paws and tapped the sharp finger claws on the console between himself and Marteen. "Goa'uld only care about power and control. If you can offer them power, they will take it from you. If they can control you, they will. Slaves are more rewarding than the dead."

"But they don't control you?"

The alien seemed to snicker. "Control is subjective, tok'ra."

"You've won dozens of battles for Sokar. You defeated two of Yu's fleets in the last year. You hate the goa'uld yet you kill for Sokar because he'll kill the last remnants of your people. That seems like control, admiral."

Tarapah glared at the tok'ra and rapped his hand claws on the central console between the two. "Perhaps."

"What is it?" Marteen sensed there was something else the alien admiral was holding back. It was difficult to read an alien such as Tarapah, but everyone, everyone in Marteen's experience, no matter the species, had some of the same tells.

"You are not the only resistance to goa'uld rule, tok'ra."

The tok'ra straightened. He looked back at the jaffa guards in the cockpit. "What does that mean? Free Jaffa?" He motioned to the rear.

"No. They are loyal to me. This is why I brought you. You will see. You will soon see." Tarapah slid his hand from the control orb and his clawed finger tapped in the security code for the command ship's hanger. He pulled off the HUD headband and stood, his cloak twirling from his sudden movement to the rear of the shuttle. His jaffa stood. The command ship's auto-lander would control the shuttle now. "I will show you."

Tarapah was greeted with little attention as he disembarked. A few jaffa presented him with data tablets and he justified bringing Marteen aboard as a new 'adviser' to better integrate the software upgrades for communications. Marteen felt the eyes of Tarapah's jaffa on him, and he wondered how many were secretly in league with the lizard alien and ready to execute whatever plan the admiral possessed.

The ranks of Free Jaffa were swelling.

Marteen followed Tarapah to the lifts, and four jaffa joined them. From there they went to a secluded portion of the massive command vessel, where there were few jaffa. Storage crates were magnetically sealed to the deck and bulkheads and held everything from weapons to dry food stores and pouches of water. He followed until they reached one of the long-term storage bays, near the outer bulkheads of the ship, a half a dozen decks below any of the main operational decks.

The long-term storage bays were often kept at lower temperatures than the rest of the ship, and the humidity was lower. Marteen could see his breath in the air, and felt the cold nip away at his exposed skin. The sounds of Tarapah's clawed feet echoed in the quiet stillness of the dimly lit bay.

There were large containers, taller than a man and easily five times a man's length, marked in goa'uld script. The overhead was only three and a half meters. The containers weren't stacked. On a half dozen he read they contained nonperishable foods, on more there were stores of weapons, on others crates of auxiliary crystals to serve as replacements in battle. There were rows and rows within the bay. There were hundreds, if not a thousand or more crates.

This bay was one of five.

The two stopped in front of a row of containers. All were marked as having arrived from one of the Dominion's outer worlds: medical supplies for fevers, biological weapons, and chemical attacks. With the jaffa immune system, these crates would most certainly never be needed.

Marteen had seen over a dozen containers with the same goa'uld script on them, from the same set of out worlds as they'd walked through the storage bay.

Marteen listened, and used his senses as Tarapah stepped up and entered his own activation codes. The container opened.

"We must wait," Tarapah said to the darkness inside. "This one has made contact with another group, powerful, and they're willing to attack Sokar. It will aide us in our mission."

_Our mission?_

"Who are you talking to?" Marteen asked. He felt that he didn't want an answer.

He saw a figure move within the container. Marteen took a step back and readied to pull his concealed energy pistol. He felt adrenaline surge through his body and his heart rate accelerated. His muscles tensed and his breath was shallow.

There was more movement.

A woman's voice: "And you found it necessary to bring him here?"

Marteen shivered, and he had to fight from stepping back. He couldn't see anything distinctive on the woman speaking, and it was a woman. The person had the figure, the hips of a woman, and the voice of one. But the voice, he felt chills. It was distant and cool. It was unnatural. From her few words her tone was arrogant, egotistical. He swore he saw dim light pulsing around the woman's neck and shoulders. Was she wearing clothes? A jumpsuit?

_How is she not cold?_

He heard something else inside the container, something mechanical.

"I gave him the codes as you instructed."

Marteen glanced at Tarapah.

_Interesting_, Nyklos mused, _the admiral is not in charge… careful, my friend._

"We didn't tell you to bring him here."

Tarapah canted his head and his teeth glared in the dim light. It was pain. A hand claw rubbed the side of this head. "No, but it was necessary… to coordinate, so you would be successful."

"Who are you? He said you were a resistance force, opposed to the goa'uld. You're not Free Jaffa. You're not Tok'ra. Who are you?" Marteen questioned, stepping forward.

"Who are your allies?" The voice asked the tok'ra. "Tarapah told us of another attack. Who?"

"The Colonies… of Kobol," he answered with hesitation, "and they'll be attacking soon. To kill Sokar and destroy this fleet."

Her head turned away, towards the side. Marteen heard that mechanical noise from behind a stack of storage boxes again. "Then we shall aide them in their fight. When they attack from space, we shall attack from within. We will wait for Tarapah's signal."

"They'll destroy every ship they can."

"That… is no concern of yours, tok'ra. When they attack from space, we shall attack from within. Sokar will die. You will complete your mission. There is little risk to you. Do you object to this course of action?"

"No."

"Then go."

The alien admiral brushed the tok'ra on the arm and jabbed his claw towards the exit. His eyes looked tired and his face pained. Marteen nodded.

Tarapah and Marteen turned and began to walk away. The tok'ra felt wrong. He stopped.

He looked back over his shoulder.

Behind the woman, what little he could see, over her shoulder, a single red eye starred back.


	22. Chapter 22

The Destroyer, Kali

* * *

Resplendent on her throne, in her magnificent pel'tak adorned with statues, ancient artwork and bathed in blue torchlight, the System Lord Kali sat with pride as she surveyed the prisoner before her. A finger made its way up and down her kara kesh as she taunted the prisoner, his eyes fixated on the crystal in her palm. Oh yes, he knew what she could do to him.

Clad in chains and beaten, bruised, and bloodied, the man was an insignificant loose end she would soon have the pleasure of finishing. Grinning, the self-proclaimed goddess leaned forward from her throne. "Is this all you can do?" She laughed and flicked her hand dismissively. "So small, so petty…"

"Torture won't work on me. God watches over me, not-" he keeled over when a Jaffa slammed an armored fist into his abdomen.

"Quiet," Kali's First Prime, an imposing, muscled, and scarred jaffa named Mer'jak commanded. He landed another fist in the prisoner's gut and he collapsed over onto the floor. The prisoner tried to break his fall but was too weak from the beatings. The First Prime struck the deck with the Rod of Anguish, and with a loud bang sparks danced off the deck and fell onto the arms and legs of the prisoner. The prisoner winced from the burns. The prisoner crawled backwards into an awaiting Necropolis Guardsman, who pushed him forward onto his belly.

He slowly made his way to his feet.

Kali cocked her head. "And where is this god you have spoken of so… _eloquently_ during your interrogation? A god stands before you right now."

"God stands with me, always."

Kali grunted and shook her head. A hand went up to her beaded mask and she took it off, to reveal her face. Coming down from her throne she went to a knee, in front of the prisoner and was at eye level. "You will tell us your secrets and we will destroy all you hold precious." She cupped his chin. "My First Prime is well-seasoned on ways to entice information from unwilling subjects." She smiled.

An angry, domineering voice was heard. "This is lord Sokar's prisoner."

Kali slowly turned towards the sound of an arrogant, aristocratic voice. She kept her eyes from glowing in anger. "Yes, I am aware of that, Kerdujn. And you should be aware that I command here."

Kerdujn bowed his head respectfully and took a step back. "I meant no disrespect, my lady. I am here merely to serve as our lord Sokar's adviser, his voice, to you, our cherished ally." He placed his hands inside his robe. "These… _things_ have caused enough difficulties for our lord. We must annihilate these... abominations. He will lead us to their home world."

The Destroyer seemed to pay him little attention yet her thoughts were momentarily consumed with concern over the spy Sokar had inserted onto her vessel, and into her fleet. How many reports to Delmak did Kerdjun make every day? What new zealotry in service to Sokar would tie her hands now?

Kali glanced back and her voice boomed. "Ganekha, what do you report?"

A somewhat short and plump goa'uld stepped forward from the rear of the pel'tak. He was clad in simple sandals and tunic, piped with two colored lines of emerald and gold. His pants and boots were black. He had a jeweled belt and small rings on each finger of his left hand. An amulet with the mark of Sokar hung from his neck. He was plain and easy on the eyes, almost comely for his age if it had not been for the nose and the wrinkles on his pale forehead. He was old, and too low of rank to be privileged with regular use of the sarcophagus. There was a throaty swallow from Ganekha. "My preliminary medical scans of the human indicate… um, that he, he is-"

Kali grabbed the tablet the goa'uld was fiddling with. "Very interesting," she said softly, scrolling through the data. "Most interesting, Ganekha… not entirely human…"

"Incoming communication from Delmak," the First Prime announced. "It is Lord Sokar."

The System Lord nodded and motioned for her jaffa to move the prisoner. In the moment before her First Prime activated the viewer, Kali composed herself, swallowed her pride, and readied herself for Sokar's demands.

"My lord Sokar." She and the rest of the pel'tak crew went to a knee. The deck was cold to the bare skin. "I am pleased to report that we have stopped this incursion and taken a prisoner."

She dared look up. Sokar, as always, was pale, and the veins in his neck and cheeks black. Kali suppressed a shudder at the sight; he was not pleasant to the eyes. His style was effective. _And this is who I serve_… she thought.

Sokar's head canted slightly. His right hand, with sharp, blue-black nails, hovered over an open flame torch that was positioned on his throne. "One prisoner? Is that all you could capture with _my_ fleet?"

"My lord, our Jaffa took many prisoners and collected many remnants of the mechanical soldiers. However, a star-shaped vessel I have never seen before appeared in orbit and destroyed the city using primitive nuclear weapons enhanced with naquadah. It fired before we could retrieve additional prisoners. Every living jaffa within a hundred kilometers was killed. Nothing remains but firestorm, my lord." She had her First Prime cut to an external feed, and the view screen was filled with the storms consuming a part of the continent the city had been on. "All are dead. Except this one, who was taken early in the battle." She stood and motioned to the prisoner.

"Are you certain he is aligned to the menace?"

Kali nodded and grabbed the prisoner. She could feel wither pain as her fingers wrapped around his bicep. She effortlessly lifted him off his feet and threw him forward. "Our jaffa reported he was seen commanding the mechanical soldiers abducting your servants, my lord."

Sokar looked towards Kerdujn. "I saw it with my own eyes, my lord. This prisoner was commanding the mechanical soldiers."

"Why have you not returned him to me?" Sokar said, his voice distant, as he placed a hand over an open flame.

"This past day we were searching for survivors, my lord. The Chappa'ai was destroyed in the nuclear bombardment. We are four days from the closest world with-"

"I have another task for you."

The great Destroyer held her tongue as her master quickly transitioned to issuing new orders, as he often did. She had been relegated to the backwaters of the Domain, far to the spin ward side of the Traverse, and closer to the galactic rim than she cared for. Her assignment from Sokar was better left to a lower-ranking goa'uld. _Not_ a system lord, yet here she stood, weeks from the front, and from the glory she required.

Weeks of chasing elusive double star and disk vessels had finally led her to this world. Yet with overwhelming firepower and thousands upon thousands of jaffa warriors, victory on the ground had been uncertain until she'd been forced to commit additional battalions. The mechanical soldiers were ferocious, knew no fear, and had potent weaponry.

_Now my battalions lay dead and loyal jaffa burned to ash. Is this what you wanted, my Lord Sokar?_ Her mind was clouded with hatred and her eyes burned with malevolence. _Your reign will end_, she swore.

"I am sworn to your service, my lord." Kali saw a glimmer in Sokar's dark, dreadful eyes at those words. There was a small, almost concealed smirk in his expression. _Yes,_ she thought, _he liked that, to hear it, to see it._ _She_ was in _his_ service.

"The main tok'ra base and High Council have been located. They have interfered with the affairs of the Dynasty for too long. You are to proceed to those coordinates and kill them." Sokar stood and walked forward. "SG1 is with them. You will captured them and bring them before me." He raised a hand and curled all but his index finger. "Do not fail me."

The Destroyer bowed her head. She heard the hate and lust for revenge in her master's voice. "As you command, I obey, my lord." The First Prime looked back at her and she nodded towards him. He commanded another of the jaffa, a Dashmed Guard with Sokar's symbol tattooed on his forehead, to take his station. Two of the Necropolis Guard watched Kali and her First Prime depart. Kerdujn stared, and Kali could feel his untrusting gaze as the doors slid slowly slid shut to the pel'tak.

The two moved to an adjacent room off the pel'tak.

"My Lady," the First Prime kneeled, "What are your commands?"

Kali turned her back on her kneeling First Prime and strode to a viewing port. The firestorm on the planet below raged uncontrollably. She thought of the weapon the star-shaped ship had used; primitive, yet effective. Naquadah weapons were so effective yet so wasteful, so imprecise… she smiled to her dim reflection in the viewing port.

"Sokar is foolish," she proclaimed. "He yearns for vengeance against the tau'ri for almost killing him." She snickered. "I want the tau'ri and tok'ra killed. Sokar hands me an opportunity, and his sadism knows no bounds." Kali's eyes glowed in the dim torchlight of the room. She knew the tortures Sokar would bestow upon the tau'ri, tortures so extreme… "Are my jaffa in place?"

"They are," the firm voice of the First Prime confirmed. "The Necropolis Guard will die for their master, and unbeknownst to them, your glory. I have personally selected the commanders. When the signal is given they will kill the Necropolis Guard, and your fleet will be yours once again, my lady. Kerdujn will be… taken…"

She saw a grin on his face. She nodded at her First Prime.

Kali stood almost motionless, except for an extended finger. "Then go. Tell Bastet, my one true ally, that our time to strike is soon. Inform her that we will also have to deal with Tarapah once his use has run its course. He is a threat to us. Go, and soon, Delmak will be mine."

* * *

Colonel O'Neill

* * *

"That's not gonna happen, Jacob, and that's really the end of it." O'Neill turned around and didn't get three steps before the tok'ra had to get the last word in. He had to step aside to let a pair of tok'ra pass, lest he be trampled. O'Neill cursed under his breath. _We don't have time for this_, he thought as he rubbed a left over ache from the last mission.

"_O'Neill, our resistance is facing significant losses in this war. We would have much better use of this ha'tak than Earth._ _We've lost nearly a hundred operatives on goa'uld warships this year alone. A mobile base of operations could prove most useful."_

_With how slow and borderline inept the tok'ra can be you all think I'll give you this ship? _O'Neill ticked his head and balled his fists. He counted to three, fell back from the tension, and then turned. "We captured the ship, we killed Cronus." He looked up, to the side. "So, how many System Lords is that now?"

"_The number of System Lords you have managed to kill is of little consequence if Sokar is able to gain control of the Goa'uld Empire. He has forced numerous System Lords and lesser goa'uld to his side."_

The colonel clenched his teeth and hit an exposed beam. "Damnit, Selmak, everything we do is wrong. Cronus killed-"

"_Robotic copies_."

Jack turned to leave but stopped. His eyes followed a pair of tok'ra, clad in their tan garb and carrying zats as they pushed a hoversled laden with supplies. "We do what's necessary. We're not afraid to get our hands dirty. We didn't start this fight, but we'll finish it. Is that what bothers the tok'ra so much? We won't play by your rules?"

"_You may come from the most powerful nation on your planet, where you can do and act as you please. But that's _not _how we or you should operate, colonel. Your planet is weak and primitive-"_

"Oh don't give me that bull."

"_We are cautious because we know our weaknesses. You do not recognize your own. Every time you kill a System Lord another takes their place. Sokar may very well win the war. More power will be concentrated and we're farther from ever taking them out. Cronus was a major figure in the System Lord hierarchy-"_ O'Neill scoffed- "_and his death could very well lead to infighting between the strained coalition fighting Sokar. Sokar is the greatest threat to this galaxy in a thousand years."_

"Then we'll take Sokar out if he comes for us… the snake barely escaped us the first go-round. We can use this ship. Take care of ourselves for once." He paused. "And another thing… if we get all their power consolidated into one System Lord, then wouldn't it be _easier_ to kill one slimy snake and then watch his empire crumble into chaos." Jack threw up his hands and shook his head. "Doesn't that make sense?" He let his hands slap the side of his thighs.

The tok'ra stepped towards the colonel. He was looked down, but looked up at Jack and dark eyes reflected back. Selmak spoke in a low voice. "_Do you honestly believe that, colonel? Would you have the time or resources to kill one all-powerful System Lord? Sokar is not one to forget and he will not forget we almost killed him. While the Asgard may protect you even they cannot stop a fleet of goa'uld warships, not with their war against the Replicators."_

O'Neill stepped forward. "Resources? You know what we're planning, so we'll have the resources." He moved to turn, but stopped. "And for the record, we killed him with a few cheap bullets." He leaned in and whispered, "Goa'uld die like everyone else if you shoot them. And I thought you said the Colonials were planning something?"

Selmak sighed. _"We have offered you technical advice in the construction of your new vessels in exchange for this one."_

O'Neill took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "We'll let you use the ship to move your people to another world without a gate. But that's it. The ship is ours."

"_Very well_," the tok'ra conceded. "Jack, you know Selmak can be fairly uh, straight forward, blunt even. He feels strongly about the issue, and so do I. If you're going after System Lords you need to coordinate with us. We have something planned. Something big. Something that can take them all out at once."

O'Neill's eyebrow rose. "That is… what?"

"Something big," the tok'ra responded with a small, sly grin.

The veteran operative suppressed a sigh at the too typical tok'ra elusiveness. "When will your evacuation be completed?"

"We're moving equipment to the ship first-" there was a beep on Jacob's wrist and he put up a finger for O'Neill to give him a moment. Jacob stepped away and when he came back, he had a look of absolute dread on his face. "We've received word from our contact on Delmak: Sokar's dispatched a fleet under Kali a few days ago… they'll be here within a day."

O'Neill came abruptly around the corner and numerous tok'ra made a quick hole to let him through. He walk-jogged the last half dozen or so steps and quickly descended the small stair into the High Council's chambers.

"Did you get him?" Daniel asked. He was sitting by Carter's side, reading something in goa'uld he'd picked up from Cronus's flagship.

"It's done," he said. O'Neill leaned over and caught his breath. He glanced over at his best buddy and could see the proud jaffa warrior standing a little taller, which made O'Neill happy. Carter looked over at Teal'c. "Tanith's dead." As cliché as it was, O'Neill knew Teal'c had that weight lifted off his shoulders. It might've been foolish, stupid, and a bit suicidal to go after Tanith like they had, but he'd owed it to Teal'c. "So, whatcha got for us?"

Carter smiled and her dad tapped on a tok'ra holo-display. She sucked in a breath, "Well, sir… we figured out a way to destroy Kali's fleet."

O'Neill raised an eyebrow.

Jacob pointed at the golden-yellow sun being projected into the air. "We're gonna blow up Vorash's sun."

There was that moment, just a moment, one that comes and goes where O'Neill felt, knew, that this would be a bad idea. Yet the prospect of destroying a goa'uld fleet…

O'Neill and Teal'c exchanged and look and both said: "Ambitious."

* * *

The ha'tak, unofficially christened _Enterprise_, violently shook as it swung by Kali's fleet. Her plasma canons were soft _boom, boom, booms_ in the pel'tak, and streaks of violent golden-orange plasma bolts lashed out at the nearly twenty ha'taks and single command ship that had surrounded Vorash. They were buying time, and needed just a little more.

The stuttered shots did almost nothing. The pin pricks from a single ha'tak were insignificant when spread amongst so many. A few lucky shots managed to take out goa'uld death gliders and send an alkesh spinning out of control towards Vorash, but the faux-suicide attack was going to be an actual suicide attack unless something happened. Fast.

"Keep us in range!" Carter shouted.

"I am attempting to maintain range," Teal'c responded in his cool, controlled tone. The pel'tak shook from a hit and the lights flickered.

An open crystal tray on the side of the pel'tak sparked. "Son of a-!" Jacob yelled as he pulled back his hand and shook it out. "Just a few more seconds…"

"Uh, guys, I don't think we can take much more of this." O'Neill grabbed Cronus's throne as _Enterprise_ lurched. He was almost thrown off his feet. "Guys…!"

"We need to keep jamming their sensors for ten more seconds!" Jacob shouted over the rumble of something exploding in a lower deck. "Okay, go, Teal'c! Get us outta here!" He was running over. "The blast wave will be on us if we don't go now!"

Teal'c moved his fingers with military precision over the command console. Years of service to Apophis had made this almost instinctive. The interface's crude touch-based neural connections anticipated Teal'c's commands as he physically confirmed them. The ha'tak jumped into hyperspace, everyone aboard feeling the pang of a faster-than-light jump into compressed dimensional space.

O'Neill forced his way to the command console as he felt gee forces suddenly increase. "What's going on!"

"I do not know, O'Neill," Teal'c said.

Jacob moved to Teal'c's left. He was a bit forceful moving the jaffa out of the way. "We're catching the blast wave of the supernova!" He looked up at the tactical displays. "We're not gonna make it!"

O'Neill saw him trying something on the control console.

"Not good…"

"Not good at all, Jack." Jacob swallowed and his eyes went wide. "Everyone, hold onto something now!"

They braced themselves.

O'Neill had found himself thrown to the deck, and with all the rumbling, tumbling, and jutting left and right on the ha'tak, had decided to stay there for the few seconds they rollercoaster-ed through hyperspace.

When it was over he got back up and brushed himself off. "Everyone good?" Daniel mumbled and Teal'c inclined his head.

"Oh, this isn't good…"

When O'Neill heard that, in Jacob's 'worry tone', he closed his eyes. "What-"

"That can't be right, can it, dad?" Carter asked. Her eyebrows were up and eyes intently focused on something, some sort of readout. O'Neill wasn't sure what.

"Guys?" Daniel was up and off Cronus's throne. "Um, where are we?"

"The computer's not recognizing any of the stars…" Jacob trailed off and put his hand over his mouth. "Oh… oh…" his eyes widened, "and that's not the least of our problems." He waved Sam over.

Carter peeked over her dad's shoulders and then moved Teal'c out of the way. The big jaffa merely raised an eyebrow as he was pushed aside. "Oh wow. Is that even possible?"

O'Neill tried not to but cringed. His left eye closed and his head jerked like someone was rubbing nails on a chalkboard. "I know I'm going to _hate_ what's coming, just hate it."

"Um, yeah, can't be good," Daniel opined as he took off his glasses to clean them. "Twenty bucks says… another dimension?"

"One hundred for time travel," Teal'c added in stoically.

"Going big there, T?" O'Neill quipped. Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Steak dinner at the Roadhouse?"

Daniel rubbed his hands together. "You're on." Then he gave O'Neill a look, confused over which scenario O'Neill was actually betting on.

There was a soft sigh. "Carter?" O'Neill piqued.

Jacob and Sam exchanged looks. He motioned for her to brief the three. "Well, it looks like we're about three to four million light years from the Milky Way, maybe in the Triangulum Galaxy. I'm not sure what this means though." She pointed for Jacob to take a look.

Daniel shrugged. "Oh, another galaxy, and here I thought it'd be bad news." His brow creased and he gave O'Neill and Teal'c a look. He pop-pop-popped his lips then plopped back down on the throne.

"It gets worse." Jacob said gloomily. "The computer on a ha'tak is crystalline based, clocked and sequenced to a rotating field of sub-space…" he saw looks from the others and put up his hands. "You know what, never mind, technical mumbojumbo."

"But that's the best kind," O'Neill teased. He let a sigh out.

"Right. We're not just in another galaxy. You all know how stargates and suns can interact um, strangely?" There were nods. "Basically the computer's telling us we've time traveled."

"For Pete's sake! Again!" O'Neill just turned around and pretended to walk out of the pel'tak but did a quick U-turn. "Okay, so what's the damage? How far?"

"Maybe six to eight weeks." A pause. "Possibly more."

"Possibly more?" Daniel asked, exacerbated. "How much 'possibly more'?"

O'Neill wanted to just go below decks and sleep, or do something. Time travel. He hated it. Going to 1969 was bad enough but then the note, that weird Ancient device. He rubbed his forehead. "Is there any way out of here?"

"It'd take decades to get back to the Milky Way… if our hyper drive crystals weren't completely fried- oh shit!" Jacob cursed.

All eyes went to the view screen.

The massive flagship of the Destroyer loomed just beyond. And it was powering weapons.

"-you're of no use to me," Kali stated. She brought her hands together. "You would have fled if your hyper drives were operational."

"_We surrender_," Selmak insisted.

O'Neill could see Kali smirk on the view screen. He heard her shout a command- what he figured was a command- in goa'uld. "SG-1," she pronounced.

"That's us," O'Neill replied with a perky smile as he stepped forward. "How can we be of killing you today?"

Kali leaned forward on her throne. Jack couldn't help but notice some of the System Lord's cleavage, a bit of an improper thought at the moment, he conceded.

"You dare to threaten me?"

O'Neill held up his hand, like taking a pledge. "I do so dare."

"I will not make the mistake of letting you live. Jaffa…"

The screen went black, and the energy readings surged. Everyone about '_Enterprise' _waited. Seconds ticked by. O'Neill felt his heart race. Suddenly an alarm wailed, and the view screen showed the glow of the plasma canons charging. Plasma bolts raced towards the ha'tak, but missed. Orange bolts, enough to rip through the armor and destroy the ship, merely singed the hull, but didn't contact. They went wide.

Daniel's head went back in surprise. "No way she missed this close!"

"She's not," Jacob reported. "She's firing on another ship… and I've never seen anything like it. Hold on, we're getting out of here." He activated the sub-light engines. The ha'tak shook from a light peppering of plasma blasts, but the tactical screen showed the engagement between Kali and the other ship intensifying. "I'm moving us into the sun's corona sphere; the radiation will block their sensors…"

* * *

The time spent in the corona sphere had been a bit _boring_, for Jack, Daniel, and Teal'c. The big guy had tried to help Carter and Selmak, but a jaffa trained to fight wars could do little in aiding the repair of the hyper drive or shields. O'Neill had felt for the big guy and had tossed him the tennis ball he and Daniel had been rolling back and forth on Cronus's throne.

Teal'c had eventually decided to kelno'reem and Jack and Daniel had rolled the ball until Daniel got bored and started making detailed notes on all the goa'uld hieroglyphs on the pel'tak. O'Neill memorized the deck layout of the first two decks.

After nearly twelve hours without much to do they left the corona sphere. O'Neill was glad to finally leave. He need to be doing. Sam and Jacob could do the repairing.

"We'll need the hyper drive crystals on Kali's ship," Sam told them.

"Yeah… but that's odd…" Jacob began, "I'm not reading a single life form on her ship."

"We still need those crystals." Jack said quietly. He, like everyone else, was bordering on exhaustion and he used the console to help keep himself propped up and get some of the weight off his feet. He shook his head and felt the adrenaline starting to pump as he anticipated the soon-to-be mission to the enemy command ship.

Jacob picked up his zat from the control console and nodded. "Right, we'll ring over."

O'Neill and Carter crept through the umpteenth lonely corridor of the ship. They found dead jaffa strewn everywhere, with holes burned in their chests, through their armor. There were slash marks on the bare skin of some, if there was any skin left. The smell was unbearable.

"Who could have done this?" Carter asked as they came upon their something-dozen body.

The colonel shook his head. "I don't know, but it looks familiar." He examined a burned, melted hole through a bulkhead.

"Eerily familiar." Carter pointed. "The burn marks on the wall; it's not a staff weapon." She looked over her shoulder and saw the colonel swallow. "Teal'c and dad should be near the pel'tak."

O'Neill walked cautiously forward, avoiding the bodies. He kept his M4 in close and felt his knuckles on the front grip tighten. He dropped to a knee when he heard something and held up a first to Carter. The two moved back towards a bulkhead and tried to conceal themselves as best they could. O'Neill kept his ears open, alert, and any fatigue from earlier on the ha;'tak was gone.

"That sounds uh, eerily familiar," O'Neill whispered. The clanking grew louder. "Shit!" He jumped back. A metal bug fluttered its stunted wings. It beeped at him and skirted forward before stopping. O'Neill took a step back. "Replicators."

Carter was on her radio. "Dad we have-"

"Jacob is aware of the replicators, Major Carter," came Teal'c's steady voice. "Do you have the hyper drive crystals?"

She eyed a second and third replicator as they fell from a hole in the above deck and clattered around. "We're um working on it, we're getting them."

"You might want to get them faster, Sam," Jacob said, his voice crackly and static-filled. "There are a lot of these things up here, and they won't stay here for long. There's some weird… thing, on the command console, like its downloading information."

"We'll get the crystals," Carter told her dad, and she looked to O'Neill and shrugged. He motioned for her to lead the way.

They entered the engineering compartment and were stunned. Replicators infested every machine, power generation, and were swarming over the bulkheads and deck. A single replicator with a pulsing line of yellow running the length of its body seemed to heave and breathe. Every few seconds replicators of different types, from the small bugs to ones a dozen times their size seemed to be birthed out of an expansive maw near the deck. The light was too bright for either O'Neill or Carter. And the air was growing stale. The replicators had most likely shut off the air scrubbers.

Replicators climbed all over the large, glowing bug in the central core. Many of them had small bits and pieces of the ship's hull, and seemed to be feeding it. Its arms, its tendrils, grew. Dozens of replicators stopped moving around a power generator and they lost their form, but instantly formed a thin, long tendril which wrapped around the generator. Other replicators appeared from the birthing maw and scattered up and down, under and over walkways and platforms.

O'Neill and Carter moved even more cautiously towards the hyper drive crystals. Carter opened the tray, and the crystals hummed and glowed and pulsed in blues, reds, purples, and yellow. O'Neill saw her concentrate as she read small goa'uld script on the side of the tray.

"This one." She pointed. "And that one." She rubbed her hands together and flexed her fingers.

"So, um… what do we do?" O'Neill asked, never taking his eyes off the massive replicator. His eyes followed the yellow pulses and tried to keep a running tally of all the replicators in engineering. It was impossible. "Do we yank 'em?" Carter nodded. "Great." He held his PTT button on the radio. "Jacob, we're going to um, be running, sprinting, really fast to the ring transporter. So you might wanna get back to the ship and ring us over. It'll be hot."

"_Copy. I'm ringing back with Teal'c now_."

"Let's move!" O'Neill shouted as he spun and fired. His bullets slammed into the dodging and weaving bodies of the replicator bugs. He heard a click and ejected a magazine. It clanked on the floor and he quickly reloaded.

"I'll cover!" Carter yelled back as she took a position and opened fire. She took down two replicators scurrying on the ceiling. A third lunged but a quick burst from her rifle shattered it into hundreds of tiny blocks.

A larger replicator jumped from behind a bulkhead and fluttered its wings. It spat acid, which narrowly missed her face. The bulkheads behind her began to bubble and melt.

Carter used one of her last grenades and tossed it down the corridor. Its blast was deafening and the deck was showered with replicator blocks. She fired again and took out more replicators. Some of the blocks were already reassembling themselves.

"Come on, Carter!"

The two SG1 fighters ran and gunned. They fired from the hip and shoulder, barely taking aim, but the mass of replicators in hot pursuit gave them plenty of targets. O'Neill shot a replicator hanging on an overhead support beam as the two jumped into the ring transporter.

"Now, Jacob!" The rings activated and replicators swarmed the transporter. O'Neill and Carter shot between the rings and tore the replicators to pieces.

The bright lights of the ring transporter activated. Their bodies dematerialized as the energies of the vortex consumed them, moved them through bulkheads and space, and rematerialized them hundreds of kilometers away. The sensation tickled.

There was a body near the corner a dead jaffa and bullet casings.

Both colonel and major knew something was wrong.

O'Neill and Carter only had mere seconds before the excruciating pain of zat energy washed over their bodies.

* * *

Major Samantha Carter

* * *

The headache was piercing, and the throbbing intense, yet Major Samantha Carter managed to shunt the pain to some far away corner in her mind and concentrate. She placed her hands by her side and pushed until she felt a bulkhead, with all the weird decorative goa'uld script, and then pushed herself up until she was sitting. She rubbed her forehead.

There was a figure, but her vision was blurry. "What?" She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her fingers rubbed her temples. "What?"

"I said-" the voice was starting to come in clear "-you took quite the zat blast by the look of it."

Sam whipped away from snot that had dribbled down onto her upper lip from the zat. The jaffa weapons had peculiar effects on human biology. They could knock someone out, give them a headache, in rare instances make them temporarily blind and deaf (something she was thankful hadn't happened) and in even rare instances result in an uncontrolled movement of the… well, that hadn't happened.

She shook her head. "Where are we?" Sam felt a strong hand on her shoulder. She slowly moved away and got a good look at the man. He had dirty blond hair, stubble, and a face that looked way too serious, even for their screwed up situation. His eyes were a beautiful cobalt blue, and the way they focused on her, looked her up and down, it felt like he was gazing into her soul and deciphering her secrets, who she was. "What happened?"

"Your second question, I don't really know, but the jaffa surprised you from what I heard them talking. They were boasting. They said they had SG1; I assume that's you."

Carter hummed a confirmation. "Where is everyone else?"

"Separated everyone, I think. How many were there? With us, we're in a holding cell." The man was squatting in front of her now. "You were in bad shape when they brought you in here." He looked over disdainfully at the massive metal door that was blocking their route to freedom. "Jaffa thugs, fraking shit bags."

Sam tried to stand, but found it hard. She paused and thought for a second, but her knees buckled. The man helped her up. "Thanks. Where's everyone else?" She didn't hear him the first time.

"The other people with you?" Sam nodded. "I heard the jaffa talking that they were being held on another level. I heard something about an O'Neill pissing off Kali or something and that she wanted to deal with him personally."

The major chuckled. "Yeah, that sounds about right. How long was I out?"

"Four, five… six hours," he smiled, "I don't know, a while, a long time. At least four or five hours. They've been coming periodically to check on us. The jaffa seem worried."

Sam walked forward to the control panel in the compartment. "That's because we're millions of light years away and decades from the Milky Way. They'll all need new symbiotes in a few years or they'll die."

"The jaffa weakness," the man mumbled. Sam thought she saw dread and fear wash over his face, before that stoic, stony look came back. His eyes came back to rest on hers. "So who are you?"

"Just people trying to fight the goa'uld. You? How'd you end up here?"

"Same."

Sam pried the control panel with a small knife she kept concealed in her boot. The man looked impressed and was nodding. "You don't happen to know goa'uld systems, do you?"

"Since I was born." He stepped up. "Though why would they have controls inside the room in a prison?"

"We're in a storage compartment. The cells were opened to space from the hyperspace damage."

The man made an 'ah huh' noise and nodded. "Makes some sense, I guess."

"Good. Maybe working together we can get out of here, get some weapons, and free the others before Kali does anything to them." She extended a hand. "Samantha Carter."

"Samantha, that's a beautiful name." Sam blushed at his compliment. "My name is Leoben, Leoben Conoy."

* * *

Colonel O'Neill grinned and took it. He went from both knees to one and then stood on his feet. A jaffa's staff, the blunt end, slapped him in the small of his back and he fell to his hands and knees. "A god can't do it herself?" He taunted. The pain. Excruciating. Overwhelming. "Pretty… _lame_!" He was able to shout before he vomited.

The colonel was dizzy. The kara kesh played havoc with his equilibrium and the room was spinning. He swore there were two Kali the Destroyers in front of him. His left elbow buckled and he fell to a forearm. He balled his right hand into a fist and with all his strength-

He felt Kali's kara kesh stop its probe of his mind. He looked up at her and smiled. She snarled at him and grabbed him single handed, her fingers wrapped around his throat she effortlessly lifted him off his feet.

"Like what you saw?" His grin was pained yet mocking.

"A pitiful creature." Her tone was malicious. "Yet so full of strength, so… _vibrant_." With her free hand she ran it down his cheek. "What should I do with you? What do you suggest, Mer'jak?" Kali looked towards her First Prime and eyed Sokar's proxy, Kerdujn, with mild suspicion.

O'Neill had figured out that some sort of tense relationship existed between the two, and he only assumed that he was some overseers from Sokar. If the reports from the tok'ra were right. A big if there…

There was another, plump-ier snake skulking in the back of the pel'tak. That one seemed afraid. The colonel was quickly running scenarios through his head to turn Kali and that proxy against each other, give himself a nice distraction, and a little more time to think of an escape.

The First Prime saluted. "Once he is broken he would most certainly make an excellent slave soldier." His smile towards O'Neill was venomous. "I could use one with such spirit as a shock trooper."

Kali huffed. "A short life." The corner of her mouth rose. "I think I may keep you alive yet. You have proven so burdensome. Yet…" the fingers around his neck tightened. O'Neill grabbed her wrist and forearm. He hit her arm with his balled fist. "No."

Kali threw him back and he landed with a hard thud. O'Neill was seeing stars, and the ugly, sycophant face of the System Lord's first prime starring down at him. He feigned more pain than he felt (which was difficult) and as Mer'jak reached down O'Neill swept the first prime's legs, and the jaffa landed on his ass. O'Neill rolled over, grappled with the first prime for mere seconds and grabbed the zat from the jaffa. He didn't even get it activated when another jaffa, one of Kali's few surviving Dashmed Guard kicked it from his hand and punched him in the gut.

"Guys… can't… fight fair," he huffed and spit blood onto the floor. He balled up, but slid his hand into his pants, and made sure his shirt was un-tucked and ruffled. "Well, I guess we can't expect anything less from you. Being a fake god and a bunch of idiots duped into worshipping her." Mer'jak cocked his fist back and slammed it into O'Neill's face. "Pussy," O'Neill taunted and spit blood. Another fist landed in his solar plexus and he gagged for air.

O'Neill's head throbbed and specks of shining light dotted his vision. He knew he couldn't take much more. He was in bad shape and he felt his energy slowly leaking away towards oblivion. _Like hell this is it_, he swore to himself.

Kali stepped down from Cronus's throne platform and moved forward. She waved Mer'jak and the other jaffa back. She brought O'Neill to his feet. "Despite what you may think, I respect the tau'ri." O'Neill laughed and rolled his eyes. Rolling his eyes was painful. She looked him in the eyes, and her eyes were a golden-white. "You have managed to kill so many System Lords. I must thank you. Apophis would have made war with me within a year of his defeat, by you. And Ares…" Kali spun around and laughed, "you did me a favor. I disliked Ares."

"I dislike all of you."

The Destroyed tilted her head. "Why do you oppose us?"

"Oh, maybe it's all the murder, rape, and pillaging?" He worked his jaw and spit some more blood, but avoided directing it in any way towards the System Lord. As much as he wanted to just piss her off the punch-to-the-gut reward wasn't worth it.

"Murder?" The Destroyer whispered. "You murdered tens of thousands when you used your trickery to destroy the Vorash star."

"The difference is we don't murder women, children… defenseless people. We defend ourselves… didn't ask for this." O'Neill felt a pain tingle its way up from his gut to his chest. He let his mind wander; _Dr. Frasier will have my ass after this mission_, he thought.

Kali waved a finger. "I have an offer to make you. If the tau'ri join me, join my empire, I will grant all of you favored status. You would serve me like the jaffa and you could take your place as conquerors You are a leader of men, Colonel O'Neill, and are feared by System Lords throughout the galaxy. You could serve by my side..." she caressed his check, "with me," she whispered.

Kerdjun, silent until then, stepped forward with force. He looked alarmed and angered. "That is not an offer for you to make. It is treasonous; it is blasphemy against Sokar's Word. Your empire is Sokar's Domain, now." He gestured towards the jaffa. "First Prime Mer'jak, you are sworn to Sokar. Necropolis Guard-" the three jaffa still alive from the Necropolis Guard readied themselves and their glowing red eyes on their horned helmets shone bright "-As a voice of our lord Sokar, I command you to seize her, and detain her."

Mer'jak brought his fist to his shoulder, and the metal gauntlet rung as it hit his armor. "By your command, my lord. Jaffa!" He gestured to Kali, who stood and stared at Kerdujn.

Kerdujn nodded. "Remove her and secure-" without hesitation Mer'jak activated his staff and fired at the goa'uld. Kerdujn was almost decapitated as the plasma bolt tore through his chest. Bits of flesh and spinal matter and bone plastered the golden hued bulkheads behind the former voice of Sokar.

Before the Necropolis Guard could act Kali's Dashmed fired on the Necropolis Guard. One Dashmed went down to the quick action of a Necropolis Guardsmen, yet the overwhelming firepower of dozens of plasma bolts on shields downed them, overloading their generators, and the Dashmed fired until the three demon-looking guards were holed, and flesh melted, bone splintered, and nearly unrecognizable as anything remotely human.

Kali shook her head at the dead goa'uld. Mer'jak tasked two jaffa with removing the dead bodies from his goddess's sight.

The sick smell of burned flesh was enough to make O'Neill gag.

The other goa'uld yelped but was silenced by a stony glare from Mer'jak.

"Now, Colonel O'Neill, your reputation, how the System Lords fear you…"She came closer, confident. "You people… you _are_ conquerors, you _fight_ like conquerors. Only a race bred for war would destroy a star. I've seen what's in your mind, and how destructive you can be, and how you would shape this galaxy in your own image. The goa'uld may use conquest, but you… you still wish to conquer, but with a different weapon." She grinned at him.

O'Neill leaned close. His nose was a few inches from her. He met her eyes. "Lady, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. We'd never serve you."

The Destroyer's mood instantly darkened. She stepped back and held up her hand. The kara kesh glowed orange-red. "Now, Colonel O'Neill, it is time to die."

"Well…" he sighed.

As Kali glared at him for one final moment- he assumed she thought it was so he'd beg, but he stood tall- but there was a noise. That familiar noise. A clank. A strange mechanical flutter. O'Neill shivered as dread washed over him. That noise he knew so well invoked fear in a man who'd stared into the faces of gods and spat in them.

A vent to an air duct began to smolder and melt. And a replicator walked right on out onto the pel'tak.

* * *

Carter finagled a small control crystal from the storage compartment's massive, multi-ton, golden (and ostentatious!) hatch. She cursed under her breath and shook out her fingers.

"Okay?" Leoben asked. Sam nodded. "So… how long you been mixed up in this?"

"Mixed up in-"

"The resistance against the goa'uld, well, fighting them, I mean. What faction are you with? You're not tok'ra. Are you lucian, hebridian? You don't work for the prawns, do you?"

Carter hesitated. Operational security was pretty much front and center and some of her superiors had been none too pleased with the amount of information they'd shared with some of their allies, and new 'friends', in the past. Her brow furled. "Um, no, we're not affiliated with them." She hadn't heard of the last one. A distant mental alarm began to sound, subdued, but there. "We've been fighting the goa'uld for a while now."

That answer satisfied her. Vague, ambiguous, but truthful. Selmak had been fighting them forever, and Jack had started a few years before her. So it was the truth.

"They can't be allowed to survive. Their existence, the way they enslave everyone, and force people to worship them as gods… away from the true… away from the truth."

"Truth?"

Leoben nodded. "That the goa'uld aren't gods. Are you religious, do you believe in God? Gods?"

Carter paused and closed her eyes. "That's complicated, Leoben."

"For me it isn't." He moved from one side to the other and leaned against the bulkhead. He tried to look in her eyes. "To be free of the goa'uld allows us the freedom to accept god into our hearts. As long as the goa'uld survive this galaxy won't be free."

The major knew she shouldn't ask, but she had to. Her gut was telling her to. "What if they don't accept your god?"

"_My_ god?" Leoben chuckled. "God belongs to everyone. That's why we live among the stars, Samantha. We're a part of God's creation, and what creation is more magnificent than the universe; stars, planets, everything out there?"

Carter didn't answer. She just continued with manipulating the crystals and trying to educate-guess the proper sequences. The tok'ra manuals on ha'taks were precise, but extensive.

"Are you okay?" Carter asked after seeing Leoben wince at something.

"Yeah, it's just, I, I, I don't know, it feels like… just a headache." He rubbed his temple. "Do you hear that? Shh." He pressed his ear towards the bulkhead and listened. "It sounds like whispering, like a lot of people are getting closer. I, I don't know. Strange."

Carter stopped. She couldn't hear a thing, but humored him by pressing her ear against the bulkhead. "I don't hear anything. I don't think anyone's out there. Can you help with this?"

Leoben leaned in towards the naked control panel for a better look. "Since this isn't a prison cell they probably just put a one-block lock on the crystal interface. At least on the ones I've been on, these types of rooms don't have much security." He started working on the door control crystals again, but had to stop. "You don't hear it?"

He looked at Carter, eyes expecting a confirmation but the blank look back and the small shake of her head only frustrated him. Carter wasn't sure what had happened to this man prior to their meeting less than an hour ago. He looked battered, his lip was busted, and there was black and blue all over his face and arms. He'd been tortured. _Are they torturing Jack?_ She thought. "No, I don't."

Leoben continued working, minutes went away in silence, with times the man would stop and stare. Carter didn't raise the issue, but she wanted to get her hands dirty, work on getting out. There just wasn't enough room for two.

"Have we met before, Samantha, on a distant world? You seem familiar."

"No."

"There's just something about you, something…" he stopped and his blue eyes were like giant orbs, and she couldn't bring hers away from his. "Something spec-" suddenly there was a crackle and a flash, and Leoben was backing from the wall. "God damnit," he cursed. He sucked on his fingers then waved them through the air. "I think it's fried. We're stuck."

"There's always a way out," Carter popped back with a smile. "You just have to be-"

The control panel flickered to life and the electronic buzzing of the panel filled the room. A second later the lights on the panel's script buttons flashed and the heavy door began to rise. It rose a mere inch at first, but after stuttering it rose far enough for someone to easily slip through. Carter was cautious and Leoben had taken a step back.

"A trap," the man told her. He had his hand raised, on her arm, to hold her back. "Don't go. I can hear them out there, waiting for us. A test."

Carter signaled it'd be alright and she tip-toed towards the opening. A replicator popped out and she jumped back. "Damn, how the hell did they get aboard?" She shifted her weight, ready to dodge a spray of acid or if the replicator lunged at her.

Leoben walked forward. His footsteps, so soft, felt and sounded uncomfortably loud with the replicator so close. Carter glanced over her shoulder. "What is… it?" He asked, breathless, and stepping closer and closer. The replicator stopped on a beam and fluttered its wings. A second quickly entered and chirped. Seemingly at the man. "They're beautiful…" he reached out.

Carter yanked him back. "Are you crazy?" She scolded. "They'll kill you if you go near them. Stand back and don't interfere and they won't hurt you."

"But, but… what are they?" Leoben whispered again. He licked his lips.

"Replicators. And they're very dangerous." She tugged at him and that seemed to break his fascination. He blinked at her and shook his head. He looked apologetically at her. "Come on, we gotta get our weapons."

* * *

O'Neill waited. The jaffa and goa'uld waited. The replicator just watched them and fluttered its stubby wings. It made a mechanical chirp and moved forward.

Then a jaffa panicked. The warrior fired and the replicator jumped to the side and the plasma missed by inches. The pel'tak swung into action as more jaffa and Dashmed focused their attention on the replicator.

The replicator scurried across the floor and dodged plasma and zat blasts, which danced on the deck ever briefly. The mechanical bug leapt through the air and felled its initial attacker with a deadly, corrosive acid spray to the jaffa's face. Flesh and bone melted as the replicator pushed away from the jaffa. A second and third replicator exited from the hole and began to attack.

O'Neill seized the moment.

He reached into his waist band and pulled the knife he'd taken from the First Prime during their melee. Mer'jak was focused on a replicator which was dodging his staff blasts while he focused on protecting his queen. The replicator leapt at Mer'jak, and the jaffa ducked just in time, but a jaffa behind him suffered as the replicator clawed into the warrior's chest, its powerful legs contracting and piercing through the metal armor on the warrior's chest.

An eerie, howling scream escaped the dying warrior's lungs as the replicator's leg bored into his flesh. The screaming stopped as a spray of acid disintegrated his chest, his heart, and his lungs.

O'Neill knew he had only a moment. He could see a jaffa to his right reacting to his sudden movement, and the shimmering knife in his hand. He pulled the muscled and heavy First Prime back, slammed a knee into his back and stabbed the knife into the warrior's neck. It was a sloppy stab, but ultimately fatal. The jaffa gurgled and blood spewed from his mouth as he coughed in a panic, trying to breath. Blood drenched O'Neill's hand as he tugged at the knife and arteries and veins tore. Kali snarled and raised her kara kesh as O'Neill sidestepped and grabbed Mer'jak's staff. The ill-time kara kesh blast sent the dead First Prime smashing into the far bulkhead, snapping and breaking bones. O'Neill spun, and kneeled. The staff crackle-hissed, and orange energy bolts danced between its capacitors.

The colonel opened fired.

Kali moved quickly and her hand flashed down to activate the shield. Two staff blasts impacted harmlessly, and the shield fluttered a dull orange-red. O'Neill spun and eyeballing it fired at a jaffa, whose leg was quickly separated from his body, and who began to howl in pain.

More replicators emerged from more holes in the bulkheads. Jaffa were dying and yelling and retreating. The colonel ran back and fired as he retreated to the pel'tak's exit. With the hatch open he slammed his fist into the controls and shot the panel, praying, hoping that such a cliché thing could delay the jaffa from escaping the replicators and chasing him.

* * *

O'Neill had moved as quickly as he could. He had dodged more than the lone replicator here and there. He could hear them everywhere, and his staff weapon would be utterly useless.

He'd ambushed a pair of jaffa running down a corridor, making more noise than a bat out of hell. They'd been the only two live ones he'd seen in just over the thirty minutes since the replicator attack on the pel'tak.

The colonel was praying that the only other live jaffa had been the ones in the pel'tak, though he assumed there were probably another half dozen to dozen more running around, depending on how many they ringed over. A few scattered bodies here and there, but no more than three additional to the two he'd ambushed.

Still. The ship was becoming a tomb.

But he couldn't let that bother him and he pushed it to the back of his mind and tried to bury the worry. It wasn't looking good; no way to defeat the replicators- he conceded this probably twenty minutes ago, and trapped millions of light years from home, and trapped with maybe a small short range shuttle in a strange galaxy with a replicator infestation. _It's like I try and get myself in these situations._

The colonel tried to control his breathing, but with each breath his side ached. He gently messaged his right side but winced when his hand caressed it. There had to be something broken, or a couple something's. He wasn't the young man he used to be.

He felt the ship suddenly lurch forward and his inside felt like they'd jumped into his throat. He knew the sensation of a ship jumping into hyper space.

O'Neill kept his pace, which was a little more than a trot. He saw replicators scurrying here and there, holes melted everywhere, and he could hear their chirping and rattling behind the bulkheads.

He stopped when he saw a shadow and heard footsteps. There was a low moan. He made himself small and brought the staff weapon up. He wasn't sure how effective he'd been firing the terror weapon the jaffa loved oh-so-much, and truthfully, he'd take a pistol over the long and awkward stick he was carrying.

But, it was all he had. He made due.

The figure moved around the bend in the corridor and stopped. Eyes were locked. The man's eyes flashed.

Then he collapsed. He dropped a goa'uld tablet computer.

O'Neill moved quickly forward but took cover every couple of steps, halting, reassessing, caution was the name of the game when it came to the goa'uld. He knew their tricks. The colonel steadied himself to the side and then psst'ed at the goa'uld. "Hey, wake up buddy or I'll shoot you. I'm not gonna poke you and let you take the staff. Don't play any tricks."

He'd seen too many bad, B-rate sci-fi movies to know if he poked him the damned snake would use his fast reflexes and strength and get his weapon.

The goa'uld moaned. "Please… I'm injured." He rolled over. O'Neill's eyebrow went up. Sure enough the snake was injured, dying by the looks of it. His stomach was slashed to pieces and there were puncture marks all over his body. "Take me with you… I can help you."

_He's desperate_, O'Neill thought. He swallowed. "How can you help me? Tell me, and I'll take you with me." _A lie_. "What do you want from me?" O'Neill's voice was commanding, not sympathetic. He couldn't leave a living goa'uld behind him so he needed to figure this out quick.

The goa'uld pointed at the computer. It was about twice the size of a deck of cards, and thinner. "Bring it to me…" O'Neill slid it over with his foot. The goa'uld started to input a command, turn it on, or something, but the colonel wasn't sure. "They… can be… anywhere… brain… infected… signals… can't… die…"

O'Neill had a few more seconds of patience before he was going to kick the tablet away from the snake, which was mumbling, and could barely be understood.

A hologram appeared, with a odd light red, almost orange tint to it. The First Prime was smashing the Rod of Anguish into the stomach of some man who was bleeding and cut up.

"_You will tell me where your base of operations is."  
_

"_Frak yourself,"_ the man cursed.

The goa'uld touched the pad and the hologram vanished. O'Neill was about to shout at him to bring it back, but the snake let out a sickening and gut wrenching death gasp, its eyes flashed, and it lost all strength in its limbs.

O'Neill waited, counted to three, and watched the snake's body to make sure he wasn't breathing. He touched the tablet with his index finger- he couldn't read the goa'uld script scrolling across- and a hologram activated. A human body but for some reasons areas of the spine and brain were being highlighted and O'Neill knew enough about basic human anatomy to know the little growth things near the spine and brain shouldn't have been there.

He didn't know what it meant and he was getting ready to leave. But the image changed, and it showed a face; a white man, deep blue eyes, strong jaw, and short, sandy colored hair. He picked up the small computer. He had to get off the ship.

* * *

Carter and Leoben had quickly reunited with Daniel, Teal'c, and Jacob. The major had found the three in another storage bay, locked behind the thick doors just like them. A replicator had come in through a vent, not the door, but she'd managed to open the door quickly enough from the outside.

She'd quickly introduced her strange compatriot.

"We need guns." Daniel said. "And a way off this ship."

Teal'c nodded, and scanned his friends quickly. "Indeed. A cache of weapons should be only a deck below us, unless the jaffa have destroyed them."

There was silence. Carter was the one to speak up. "That's our best bet. Then we get off the ship."

"We'll be stuck here," Daniel said with a sigh. "But alive."

"But alive," Carter agreed.

"You three go ahead," Jacob said. He motioned for Daniel, Teal'c, and Leoben to move forward. "I need to check something."

Daniel took the lead, with Teal'c and his decades of training forcing him to cautiously take up the rear and not allow the stranger out of his sight, or behind him.

When the three were ahead, out of earshot Jacob turned to his daughter. Sam could see the worry on his face. "What's wrong, dad?"

Jacob paused and looked both ways down the corridor. He leaned close to his daughter. "I don't know, Sam. Selmak is giving me some odd feelings about that one you picked up."

"Goa'uld?"

Jacob shook his head and covered his mouth. "No, no, it's not that. It's just that feeling, you know?"

Sam's eyes lingered on her father before turning towards the person of his worry. "I've been watching him. He said he's been fighting them for years, asked what resistance I was with. If he's a plant, then it's kind of a complicated plan there. I can handle it."

Jacob squeezed his daughter's shoulder in a rare display of father-daughter love. "I trust you, Sam."

Jacob and Carter had quickly caught up with their team mates and armed themselves. They'd stored weapons throughout the ship, and radios. Each of them armed themselves with tactical vests, plenty of spare magazines, eye protection, an M4 and a pistol.

There was no point in donning heavier armor, not with replicators which could pierce any material known to man- and known to asgard- and with an acid spray more deadly than bullets.

"_Carter to O'Neill-"_ static filled the radio. "_Carter to O'Neill."_

"Colonel O'Neill may be on the pel'tak, with Kali," Teal'c stated. "Or he may not have been able to access one of the weapon caches."

"You'd know? They're probably torturing him, right?" Leoben asked with a voice filled with disdain, directed at the jaffa former first prime. "Jaffa?"

Teal'c sensed the emotion and inclined his head. "In my experience a highly valued prisoner would be kept with the goa'uld, and a _kara kesh_ utilized to extract information from them."

Leoben's eyes narrowed. His upper lipped flickered in anger. "I was tortured-"

Carter put a hand up to Leoben and pushed him gently back. "Teal'c's our ally. If you can't deal with that you can try to find a way off this ship on your own. You wanna try that, or try to get off with us?"

Leoben licked his lip and looked towards the ground. He nodded quickly. "Sorry." He sounded sincere. Teal'c inclined his head. "You can count on me, Samantha."

"We should move out," Daniel said as he re-entered the storage bay. "I saw about a dozen replicators moving out down that corridor. There's gotta be hundreds."

"If they came aboard after the flagship blew up, there's probably a few thousand. At least," Carter reported as she checked her weapon and her magazines one last time. "Everyone have enough ammo?"

There were nods. Daniel nodded and shrugged and she snorted. She felt the same. Ammunition would go fast against the replicators. A thirty round magazine could be expended within seconds. And the replicators didn't really know what 'suppressive fire' was. They charged. And they kept charging. And while they charged and died they always got a little closer with each wave, and there were always more, decks above or decks below, chewing and knowing, creating more replicators to replace all they'd lost. And many more to expand their ranks, to kill, to replicate.

Carter shivered as she stepped off. Each time she thought of the replicators and what they represented sent chills down her spine. They were a horror, a monster, a force of nature.

Then she felt a wave, a rush. "We've jumped into hyperspace," she heard herself saying. She blinked and shook her head. "That felt funny."

"Indeed, Major Carter."

"Yeah, something's off with the engines," Jacob agreed, looking up and down and around. "There's a secondary command deck. We could find out some information from there. Sam?"

They all looked to her for leadership. She nodded. "We'll proceed to the secondary command deck and figure out what's going on from there. Once we do we'll use the ship's sensors to locate the colonel."

* * *

After fifteen minutes they had managed to make it to the opposite side of the ha'tak and up a level. Replicator patrols- or what they figured for patrols- were intensifying. What had started as groups of maybe a dozen replicators with mostly small bugs and one giant bug had morphed into groups of dozens, with a half dozen or more of the giant, curve-winged bugs crawling besides their smaller brethren.

They paid the team no attention. Once they'd gone up a deck the replicator patrols had once again thinned out.

Carter motioned for the team to move slowly as they neared the last turn in the corridor before reaching the command center. She heard muffled chatter from around the corridor and quietly sneaked up. Jacob followed her, with Daniel quickly behind. Teal'c took up the rear, with Leoben in front of him.

She used hand signals to indicate the presence of four jaffa, all standing around, but anxious. They were looking at the over head, probably listening for replicators. Carter could barely heard the clatter and scurrying of bugs over the blood rushes to her head, and she could heard her blood pulse as she readied for combat.

With a quick hand signal they sprung into action. Carter and Jacob, Daniel and Leoben, they all fired, and each had picked a jaffa. Within seconds three were down, but one had only been wounded, and returned fire. Carter forced him back to cover with a quick burst from her M4. Daneil and Jacob successfully moved to the opposite bulkhead, and a second burst of suppressive fire let Jacob move closer.

The jaffa concentrated on Carter and Leoben. Golden plasma bolts streaked by, superheated the air, and tickled Carter's skin from the extreme heat as they flew by. She had Goosebumps, and felt a tingle surge through her body as she ducked back behind cover and two bolts raced past.

Leoben fired until he heard his rifle click and quickly reloaded. The jaffa sputtered his fire as he moved back and the corridor was lit with small, low-powered balls of still-deadly plasma, but the warrior had to glance down to keep from tripping over a comrade after almost losing his balance. That quick, split second gave Jacob the time he needed to take aim and fire. Two bullets penetrated the jaffa's armor, but the jaffa held firm and pushed himself back into cover.

Daniel raised his rifle and fired again, twice, and hit the jaffa is the leg once. The warrior yelped and a moment later, as if with blood rage snarled something in the jaffa language. It was as if he sensed his imminent death. And he would die.

The jaffa could die huddled behind a bulkhead, trying to cower and shoot. The warrior knew the odds were stacked against him, and that he would die. Carter sensed that in the way he'd yelled.

She readied herself.

The jaffa stood and fired as quick as he could. Plasma ripped down the corridor, burned and melted bulkhead, and ionized the air.

With a careful aim and a slow squeeze of the trigger Carter put two more in his chest, one in his throat, and a fourth through his mouth, and out his brain steam. The jaffa collapsed into an ineloquent pile of flesh and bloodied red armor.

"Let's move," she said, voice cool, collected. They checked the bodies before moving into the command deck. "Dad…" Jacob nodded and began work on the computer while the others took guard positions.

* * *

O'Neill paused to catch his breath and rub his side. His body was littered with bruises and cuts and his head throbbed as the aches and pains from Kali's cruelty resonated through him. He turned a corner and smiled. One of the compartments they'd been using to store weapons for the tok'ra, and ferry to jaffa resistance was right in front of him. The golden door, with its crazy goa'uld picture language, had a nice, black and white sign on it stating 'General Storage 003'.

The colonel cautiously approached. He tapped the door controls and the multi-ton metal slab began to rise. It sounded more like a stone door being pulled up than an advanced composite being lifted by some sort of gravity technology.

He'd turned for only a moment when the corner of his eye caught the dull gray boxes filled with rifles, pistols, shotguns, and most importantly, radioes. He'd turned for only a second. A heartbeat.

When he stepped forward he heard the hissing of a staff weapon charge and felt the heat and ionization as a ball of plasma whipped by his face. O'Neill backpeddled and went to a knee. He turned and brought his staff up to a charging jaffa warrior.

They both fired. O'Neill's shot went wide, and his second was closer, just grazing the armor of the beast. The jaffa's bolt went past his forearm and he felt the skin burn. He fell forward as something behind him exploded.

The colonel, on his belly, with the jaffa mere steps away raised the staff. The jaffa brought his down. At the last second O'Neill rolled, the jaffa snarled, and both fired.

The jaffa fell to the floor. A charred hole in the deck was smoking where O'Neill had been laying just moments before.

"A little cliché, but I think I have to say it: I'm getting too old for this," the colonel said to himself as he groaned and worked his arms to push him up. He checked the corridor and he went back into the storage compartment.

He found the guns, the magazines, the vests. He rapped his fingers on crates of various explosives and finally decided on taking a little bit of C4.

"Where are you…?" He asked no one as he moved a crate off another. Then he saw small black pieces of plastic scattered on the floor, smelled burned plastic and saw them. "Great." He picked up a smashed and half melted radio. The jaffa's staff blast had hit the crate carrying the radios.

_It's always something_…

* * *

"We entered hyperspace alright, and we're moving fast."

"Let me see, dad." Carter was over the console, her eyes darting left and right and back again as she read the data. "Shit." Her neck webbed and she tensed when her father gave her a scolding look. "The replicators are accelerating this ship to a hundred times its normal hyperspace speeds. Hold on, now two hundred, four hundred, five hundred. How are they doing this?"

"Amazing creatures," Leoben whispered.

Jacob looked up at the man while still working on the console. "Amazing or not, we'll be back in our galaxy in no time at this rate. They've increased speed… maybe an hour, at most."

"We can't let them into our galaxy, dad. We have to do something."

"The only way to blow up the ship would be an internal explosion. The central reactor would be a replicator hive for the power so it'd probably be impossible to get down there…" he trailed off. "You all didn't bring any nukes for the rebel jaffa, did you?" Jacob asked with a smile and a wink. But there was a hint of seriousness behind the voice.

Carter sighed and gave him a choppy shake of the head. "Jack wanted… um… well…" she looked to the side. "Wait, dad, where is the ship heading? In our galaxy? The coordinates? There has to be coordinates for the ship."

Jacob wagged a finger at her. He started to access the goa'uld computer. "Crap. I'm locked out."

"Hold on." Leoben placed his rifle on the console and put a gentle hand on Jacob's shoulder to move him out of the way. He began to work on the computer. Within moments a planet appeared on the holographic displays. "We're heading to Delmak," Leoben sighed, "so even if we make it off the ship, Sokar will kill us."

Carter snapped her fingers. "You know what, we'll do sort of what we did on Thor's ship. We're heading to Delmak-"

"Crash the ship in the planet and kill Sokar." Jacob was nodding and typing commands. He snorted. "It's heading right back to Sarqara. This ship will crash right into his capital…"

* * *

O'Neill paused at the intersection of a corridor and took his finger and pointed left, and then straight ahead. The four-way intersection was aglow with torchlight, and he let his mind wander for a moment; _what the hell do they burn? They're always burning, how?_

He tore his eyes away from the dancing flames and refocused. The deck plans of the ha'tak weren't terribly different in this part of the ship. The problem was the ship was huge, and he'd been forced to double back and head up two decks to move past replicator infestations and possible what could have been jaffa.

There were a few places Sam, Daniel, Teal'c, and Jacob would have been kept, and he'd checked them all. One of the storage bays looked like it might've been jury-rigged by one of them, but they were long gone.

The colonel moved forward to the next intersection. He listened. As he was about to step out he paused, his foot in the air, and he slowly put it back down. With a swallow he cut the corner until he could just barely see the outline of someone's leg, down the corridor. They had their back to him. He moved to his left, little by little, then leaned out.

"Turn around, slowly," he commander, his voice slightly muffled as his cheek was pressed against his M4.

The goa'uld turned. Kali's eyes glowed white. O'Neill's eyes widened and he felt his pulse quicken.

The System Lord shook, and she was clutching her arm. The arm that had had her kara kesh was gone, replaced with a stump, just above the elbow. The flesh was burned, and red, with blisters up to her shoulder.

"O'Neill."

"Kali. Excuse me, _System Lord_ Kali." He lowered his guard, just a little, but kept his distance and his rifle ready. "Not looking too good." Her clothes were tattered and there were more burns and cuts over her body.

Kali sneered. "Take me with you. My jaffa are dead. Sokar will have me tortured and executed for this failure."

O'Neill sucked in a breath. "Yeah, and why would I want to do that?"

"The Tau'ri are primitive and uncoordinated. I could aide you in technological advancement and your war against Sokar."

Colonel O'Neill considered that for a moment. The woman who'd tortured him was at his mercy, pitifully defeated, and beginning for her life.

Could she be trusted?

_Don't kid yourself, Jack_.

Could he do what he had to do?

"We're approaching our home galaxy, O'Neill. We must escape. There is a shuttle six decks down. But we must destroy this ship, and prevent our galaxy from becoming infested with these abominations."

For a moment O'Neill had to admire her sense. He hated her, despised her. But she wasn't a coward. "How?"

She winced. "Engineering… do you know how to get there?" O'Neill nodded. "Destroy the primary control console in the adjacent room. The ship will re-enter standard space and…" she swallowed.

Kali starred at him, and he at her. Her eyes were cold. His eyes were detached, unremorseful. She straightened herself, and brought her hand off from clutching her stump. In that moment, it was as if permission had been granted, unsaid, but understood.

O'Neill pulled the trigger. He felt the rifle press into his shoulder. He heard its bark and saw its flash. A burst, no longer than a heartbeat, escaped his rifle.

When it was over O'Neill heard a piece of brass rolling on the floor. It stopped against his boot.

Kali was on the ground, face down, lifeless, in a pool of blood.

* * *

"We need to move, fast!" Jacob yelled. He fired at a group of replicators and pulled Daniel.

"Teal'c," Carter shouted over the roar of gunfire. "Help dad get Daniel to the shuttle. Leoben and I will take out the control crystals!"

"Understood, Major Carter," the jaffa responded. He banged his fist into a control column and a force shield activated. "That will not hold the replicators for long." The bugs jumped at the shield, which flashed blue each time one leapt at the shield.

Carter kneeled over Daniel. "It'll be alright, Daniel," she said with a hushed voice and soft smile. She squeezed his shoulder.

"I know."

She could see the pain he was holding back from the burn. He was damned lucky his leg wasn't gone. The acid had eaten through the deck and splashed his leg. There were holes in his BDUs and the flesh was looking bad. For Carter it looked worse than it had five minutes ago.

"Dad. Leoben and I will destroy the crystals. Get him to the shuttle and let us know when you're there. We'll make for the ring room once we destroy them."

"Be careful, Sam." He grabbed one of Daniel's arms and helped the archeologist to his feet. Daniel grabbed the frame of his glasses and tossed them away. Both lenses were cracked and useless. "Teal'c, help me with him."

They heard hissing from behind. "We need to go now, Samantha." Leoben said as he back stepped away from the force shield.

The replicators were spraying their acid around the bulkheads, and would be through in minutes.

* * *

Leoben and Carter had entered the adjacent control room to engineering thinking there would be replicators. There were none. Instead there were replicators crawling all over the engineering compartment, and just like on the destroyed flagship, a massive replicator was in the center of the room. It was glowing, its tentacles growing, and replicators crawled over every surface.

Carter paused and looked out the shielded window of the room and shivered.

"They should know we're in here."

Leoben moved forward and shook his head. He put his rifle down and rubbed his head. "Why aren't they attacking?"

"I don't know. Usually once they've gone hostile they stay that way. Maybe we're too far from their home galaxy?" _I have no damned clue_, she told herself, _and it's scary. What the hell are they doing?_ She felt a shiver work its way up her spine. "Here." She pointed. "_Dad, you ready?"_

"_Give me thirty seconds to open the bay and then destroy the crystals, Sam."_

"_10-4_," she squawked.

"I can't let you do that, Samantha," Leoben said, darkness in his voice.

Carter turned. "What are you talking about? Can't let me do what?"

"I hear them." He looked up and smiled. His blue eyes shined like fiery cobalt, but Carter knew something was very wrong, very off. "The whispers… they're beautiful… perfect, harmonious. They're God's retribution, don't you understand? For the sins of mankind."

Leoben was looking down but Carter could see something in his expression, something terrifying, and something that wasn't making sense. Her mind raced to analyze what he'd said, the horrifying implication of his statement.

She stepped back and her fingers slowly tightened around her rifle. Carter sniffled and narrowed her eyes at the man who'd fought beside her today. There was a dangerous path and she knew where it led.

"The replicators are dangerous and we can't let them get a foothold in our galaxy!" Carter pleaded. She knew they only had minutes to destroy the control crystals and smash the ship into Delmak.

Leoben grunted. "Dangerous… _not to us_," he said in an almost silent voice.

Carter's breathing slowed. "_What_ are you?"

"_A messenger_. They're salvation. Mankind's end is at hand." He made to approach her.

"Don't." She raised her rifle.

Leoben rolled his eyes at her and snorted dismissively. "You won't be able to stop me."

Carter fired, but Leoben was too quick. The bullets sparked on the far bulkhead. He moved with such blinding speed and purpose. In three steps he'd crossed the room, in a mere second he'd smashed his palm into the side of her M4 and knocked it from her grip. She yelped as her finger broke.

Carter stumbled back and tripped over a console. As she fell she grabbed for her pistol, but Leoben had grabbed her by the arm and yanked her up. She heard a pop as her shoulder was pulled from its socket.

Leoben had her hand pinned to her side; his other hand had yanked the pistol from her holster and was pressed into her gut. She struggled, but couldn't move. His eyes burned into her and Carter saw an evil deeper and darker than any she'd seen in the goa'uld, an evil that was learned, willful.

He pulled her in tighter and her shoulder burned from the pain.

"You won't get away with this." She spat at him. "You'll-"

"God's children will soon return. You can't imagine how I see this universe, Samantha. I can see the details; I can see the threads that hold life itself together. The replicators are nature itself. The whole galaxy will burn for the sins of our creators. The replicators will be our tool. They will be our salvation, and your doom."

His hand closed tightly around hers, and she squirmed in agony and went to her toes. Leoben wrapped a hand around her throat and slowly raised her off her feet.

"Go to hell," she cursed at him. She would not yield. She kicked at him, but his free arm blocked. She felt a pistol shoved into her stomach.

"I thought you were special, Samantha… maybe you are. But now-"

There was a bang. Carter gasped and fell.


	23. Chapter 23

AN: So after a long hiatus, DOTS is back.

Please leave reviews on what you like/don't like/constructive criticism. That's the only way to make the story better and at times it seems... could use some more reviews. They're nice. ;-) To read and have sitting in my email inbox. I see there's more favorites but please give it a few minutes for a constructive review.

Also, there is a lot of thanks and credit to Spartan303 for his help and as serving as a beta and being a good guy to bounce ideas off of and he had some good ideas for details on this chapter. He also co-wrote a few of the battle scenes.

We're also rapidly approaching the end of Part 1 of DOTS.

* * *

The handheld buzzed. Its plastic was cool to the touch. "Nagala."

"_Sir, you wanted to know when the recon team was back."_

"Yes."

"_They'll be ready for their briefing in approximately ninety minutes, sir."_

"Thank you, captain." Admiral Nagala sucked in a shallow breath. He hesitated but placed the handheld back on its receiver. He cracked his neck and felt tension release as vertebrae popped on down his back. His fingers ached. A cup of coffee on the corner of his desk had long ago cooled.

As he drummed his fingers and stared at his journal. He read the words slowly and deliberately, trying to decide on whether to add a note at the bottom: '_I should not be so dramatic.'_ He snorted, looked off to the side, at the decoration on the bulkhead of his office and picked up his ancient quill.

The quill and ink bottle had been passed down for nearly a dozen generations, and went from the deathbed of the family patriarch or matriarch, to the eldest son or daughter. Jance Nagala had started the tradition. A writer, a poet, and a humanitarian, Jance had been a champion for peace and an advocate of the weak.

Nagala continued to write:

"…_and how the gods will judge us is but one worry. How will history judge us? Will we be seen as liberators bringing freedom and a better way of life to the galaxy, or will they see us as imperialists yearning to build an empire on the foundations of our so-called ideals?_ _But the more important question is: how will our children see us?_

_History can be a cruel beast, merciless in its judgment and absolute in its conclusions. My entire adult life has been in service to my world and to the Colonies. A hundred acts of selflessness and kindness can be undone with one act of evil. _

_My children are grown with children of their own. It is their opinion which matters to me most…and they may damn us. _

_Fifty million._

_That is the number- a conservative estimate- of deaths that will result from our nuclear bombardment of Delmak. Naquadah poisoning and radiation exposure are expected to kill at least that many… yet the jaffa are immune. Human and alien slaves will die. We will be killing the very people we wish to free… but we're not freeing them. We claim we are. From Sokar. From the goa'uld. But we are unwilling to put our soldiers on the ground and rebuild that world and show its people a new purpose. The dead care little for your freedom, your justice, if they died by your hand._

_Some members in the Fleet see this as a first step towards liberating a galaxy. Yet until we met the people of Earth, we didn't know these alien civilizations existed. There had always been speculation, tales, but the galaxy is vast and habitable worlds an insignificant fraction of the worlds out there. We didn't find them, though. And because of that we are unprepared for how this will change us._

_I have heard of the wonders out there in the galaxy from the tok'ra, the goa'uld Rhadmet, and from our own operatives far from home. We can never hope to free the galaxy. The scope of such an endeavor makes it impossible, stupid, though we may be able to sow insurrection and inspire hope and rally oppressed people's to our cause. But as long as the Cylon threat remains we are incapable of sustained action against the goa'uld. And where are the Cylons? Why have they not contacted us? It is reasonable to assume they have been listening to our transmissions and spying on us. They know. I have a fear we have heard so little- nothing, in fact- from our creations because… because they have known for many years… could this explain their inexplicable and sudden cease fire with us almost four decades years ago? The discovery of a Cylon MCP thousands of light years from their space on Kallana worries me greatly. What are they doing? This could be a game to them._

_The Cylons. They are out enemy and our unifying force. I grew up despising the Gemenese cultists and the Tauron dirt eaters, who wanted nothing other than to enslave my world. Now a Tauron is my second, and my daughter has married a Gemenese man. For almost two generations we have been united. Yet the Cylon threat diminishes year by year- so say the analysts- so would our union diminish as well? Will the Cylons then attack us, when we fight and war amongst ourselves again? The rise of new political movements, centered on independence and confederation would diminish our united Colonies, and if dissolved, I have no doubt we would once against war amongst ourselves within a generation. We are still a single people of twelve unique worlds. We need focus._

_Some will say that the goa'uld are our new enemy, one that is a clear danger to us, and one so vast and powerful that it would take a dozen generations to defeat them. The goa'uld will rebind our society into a common cause once again. They are our new focus. _

_I have reservations. I believe we all do. I can see it in the eyes of my commanders. They hide it well, though. But it is my duty to see what they hide and hear what they do not say. The battle of Delmak will be like nothing we have ever faced. The Cylons were our own creation…a sin we were forced to face. In the Cylon War there were no innocents. Each and every Cylon wanted us dead, yearned to kill and slaughter us. How many of those one hundred million dead even know we exist, and how many of them fight because they believe in their so-called gods… how many are forced at the point of a gun?_

_In the last eighteen months the Colonies have changed. _

_This attack relies on the information from a secretive people I can't say I trust. Nor can I say what the tok'ra's ultimate goal is. We may be pawns in their galactic game of subversion and insurrection against the goa'uld overlords. Hundreds of thousands of lives are dependent on intelligence gathered from a mere handful of sources… if this were the Cylon War, with what we know, we would not be launching this attack._

_Yet I want to be clear that I supported this attack. Sokar may very well come for us, and his vessels have probed our frontier, and have come closer and closer to our inner space. The president asked my opinion, and I told him we must attack sooner rather than later. Sokar is distracted. If we kill him his empire will collapse and the goa'uld alliance will falter and their dynasty will regress into their perpetual state of civil war. _

_There is no retreat now. We are two jumps from engaging Sokar's defenses. My faith in the Colonies has never wavered. I pray to the gods we are ready for the responsibility we will soon be facing, and I pray for my children and grandchildren that I will leave them better worlds, safer worlds, than we have now._

* * *

The pieces had been position, the board was set. Battlestars and ha'taks were engaged in a heated battle that would claim millions of lives that day. A force of battlestars the Fleet had not assembled in decades bore down on a world which knew nothing but sorrow. The capital of Sokar's vast empire where slaves toiled endlessly in factories and were broken upon the merciless conscript training fields so many hundreds of millions yearned to be set free.

Today their only freedom would be release from their endless torment.

Slaves working in factories did not see the nuclear fireballs as they consumed their cities. Slaves asleep in their beds did not hear the explosions nor realize they would never wake again.

The battle raged between the jaffa loyal to Sokar and the Colonial Fleet. And it was reaching a tipping point. The planet was ravaged, the jaffa fleet badly damaged, but it was rallying.

Though badly disorganized and confused by the initial attack and the subversions of the tok'ra Marteen, the dogged tenacity of the Jaffa had prevented them from falling completely into disarray. Jaffa losses had been extreme, for they had never faced a foe who had wielded the unnerving ability to appear and disappear at will as these enemies did.

A flash of light and either one of the tiny tan-colored gunships these enemies used or one of their massive behemoths could emerge.

The defender's battle lines were drawn, and Sokar's fleet was pressing the attack with a ferocious tenacity only the jaffa were capable of. Never before had Delmak come under such direct threat, and never before had the jaffa known such vulnerability. Behind them mushroom clouds rose over the ruins of dozens of cities, shipyards burned, and crippled warships fell from orbit into fields and towns, and upon factories and into oceans.

But their devotion to their god Sokar demanded that they defend the capital of their Empire and they would do that with a fervor born of the fanatical.

This battle would be merely a beginning to a bloody end for these attackers. In the eyes of the jaffa the entire civilization of these _heretics _had forfeited its right to existence. And then, when they had driven off the vermin, they would seek out _their_ world amongst the stars and reduce it to dust at the will of Lord Sokar. Surely his wrath would be terrible in the extreme and no world would survive. While the cities of Delmak were burning _their_ cities would bleed, slow and painfully.

For the Colonial fleet the tide of battle was moving away from the success of the initial strike to stalemate. The assault had managed to hit most of their targets and dealt what would be a horrendous blow to Sokar's infrastructure. His ability to prosecute a war with the System Lords and the Colonies would hopefully be severely diminished if not crippled.

However, Delmak's fleet was still combat capable and countering the Colonial offensive. Maneuvers were being met with counter-maneuvers as each side attempted to win an advantage over the other, catch a squadron of ships out of formation, and open a hole in the screens of their enemy to plunge their knife into the heart of the opposition's fleet.

The Raptors had met with near universal success. Of the hundreds of craft sent on the mission few had been destroyed. Their naquadah tipped nuclear missiles had cracked Delmak's defense nets, smashed a dozen ha'tak mother ships and cheops attack ships at moorings, and incinerated swarms of gliders and al'kesh.

Yet each damage warship became a deadly guided missile. Already an attackstar had been lost to a ramming action of a ha'tak. Two gunstars were disabled and under emergency power. Numerous other vessels were sustaining damage ranging from minor to severe and catastrophic. If Viper pilots did not maintain their CAP over their home ships damaged gliders and al'kesh would suicide for their god into the hulls of the Colonial warships. The battlestar _Heimdall_ had suffered a near catastrophic suicide run early in the battle yet had been saved by the heroic actions of her DC crews.

The Colonial fleet had expected this, yet the ferocity and willingness of the jaffa to annihilate themselves in such a manner was still a shock. Precious minutes had been wasted as the fleet coordinated an effective defense against the suicidal tactics of the jaffa's opening waves.

The mammoth battlestar _Atlantia_ shuddered as a plasma bomb struck its frontal armor. In the distance, a low and muffled alarm klaxon could be heard. Yet the damage control of the battlestar was too precise, too minute for the fleet commander to worry himself with. A battlestar was a well-oiled machine, with thousands of personnel who knew what to do when. Professionals. Buried deep within the core of _Atlantia_, the FCAC- fleet command action center- was safe… _safe as any place could be in pitched battle_, Nagala considered.

Admiral Nagala straightened his shoulders and cupped his chin while he used his other hand to support his elbow. His eyes began to narrow and focus. He stood tall and regal in the FCAC, watching the massive tactical display on the bulkhead. Like a skilled surgeon his focus was a sharp as a scalpel. He was weighing the odds of sending battlestars forward without screens, jumping entire formations and separating them from covering battle groups, and planning his moves steps in advance and the contingencies should his next moves fail him and the Fleet.

The admiral would not be content with _just_ destroying the ship building infrastructure of Delmak. The government wanted the king snake himself, Sokar, and he was damned fraking not going to fail in his mission to deliver the parasite.

The objective was simple: kill the System Lord. Everyone said this would throw his Empire and the rest of the System Lords into chaos in what FID and Section 7 briefed would be an orgy of internecine warfare.

While the admiral was intimately involved in policy, today his concern was not sociopolitical, economic, or galactic in scale. No. It was the here and now, this one planet, these two fleets, and the hundreds of thousands of men and women under his command depending on him to bring them home.

The deck shuddered from another plasma bomb hit. And again. Nagala had to grip the console on a third strike.

Nagala turned his head as two figures approached from his peripheral vision; Commander Marc Bannon and Major Jessica Amorak. It was good to see the enigmatic figures on the _front_ rather than sitting behind a desk.

_I can only imagine what Amorak's been through_, the admiral thought as he remembered the after-action report from being shot down. Scientists didn't sign up for that. "Commander." He nodded. "Major."

Bannon stopped beside the admiral and clasped his hands behind his back. He stood straight, taller than the fleet commander, who was years his senior. He was watching the display, which dominated the bulkhead, and his eyes seemingly tracked every movement and blip. "_Silent Shade_ is reporting ready for jump, sir. We bring her in and goa'uld should lose their ability to effectively coordinate."

"Major, you are confident in your ship and new weapons?" Nagala turned slightly to face the major, who was by Bannon's side. She glanced at him. He could read under the calm demeanor and little smirk that the woman was nervous.

"The new EW systems will work, sir. We've put countless hours and billions into it."

"The weapons?" Nagala pointed. "Our ships are taking quite a beating." The DRADIS refreshed. Viper and Raptor squadrons were being lost. But his place was to conduct the _battle_, the big picture. Lost squadrons were up to the group commanders and task force admirals to compensate for.

The major raised his chin. She stepped out and face the admiral. For a second she looked insulted, indignant that anyone would question her. Bannon made a barely discernable motion- but Nagala saw- with his hand, and the major stepped back.

"The shield disruptor shells will work. We've tested them on captured goa'uld vessels, sir. Once they bathe the shields in exotic particles they'll destabilize the energy field and our shells and missiles will see marked increases in penetration capabilities."

"Indeed." Nagala coughed. "Their lines have held well thus far, major, so let's hope that the SDRs work." He guessed her next question. "We will deploy them momentarily, major. Colonel Farr, relay orders to ordinance to begin readying the SDRs." He shouted over to one of the many in the FCAC. The SDRs were highly radioactive and needed to be stored separate. Nagala recognized their utility and potential destructive power but the exotic particles and radiation was another worry. "The goa'uld need to be weakened further and their ships are still not committed. Once our battlestar groups on the flanks more in and cut them off from planetary reinforcements we will deploy your weapons."

"Aye, sir," Bannon answered for them both.

"Colonel, order the _Shade_ to jump in close to _Atlantia_ and begin broadcasts in all goa'uld EM spectrums. I want them to hear nothing but static." The colonel acknowledged the admiral's orders. "Commander, major." He dismissed them.

Bannon nodded and stepped back. Nagala saw him return to his station and converse with his fellow FID analysts but he was concentrating on the battle. Amorak took a few steps behind the admiral, but lingered. He could sense her apprehension as the weapons were readying to be deployed.

Nagala turned his attention back to the battle. The line had initially wavered. Gliders and strike craft had been incinerated by long range nuclear missiles. But assaulting a planet was inherently difficult. Planets could garrison more fighters and attack craft than any fleet could muster. And Delmak's ground facilities had easily and quickly replaced and expanded upon the lost gliders of Sokar's orbital forces. Even with nuclear strikes on ground-based installations.

The information relayed to his flagship _Atlantia_ painted a sobering picture of the battlefield around the warship. Thousands were dying in the largest battle since the end of the Cylon War. A strikestar's DRADIS icon began to flash, indicating heavy and near critical damage. The vessel's icon displayed a steady diamond above before disappearing. Nagala breathed a sigh; the strikestar had managed to jump to a relay point a light year beyond the edge of the system. But it was another asset stricken from the board and Nagala would be unable to utilize her.

Already the strikestar's group commander was shifting assets. Nagala nodded to himself. His people were good and they took initiative.

Yet the blip was just one of many which were beginning to flash. Nagala could see a dozen steps ahead, and he could see that with the ha'taks maneuvering on the far side of the lines, enveloping BSG 12, that they could open a serious hole to exploit. Admiral Nagala may not have had the hundreds of years experience the goa'uld commanders did but his experience was fighting _real_ battles against _competent _enemies who would do more than just throw weight of numbers and guns against a foe. He had to fight smart.

Situated around him were a number of information relay stations and secondary electronic screens showing numerous images or real time video streaming directly from the ship's powerful telescopes. It showed the Colonial fleet throwing _almost _everything it had at the defense fleet of Delmak...and yet it was not enough. He did not have weight of firepower on his side, and he knew this coming into the battle. The surprise raptor strikes had tipped the scales to Sixth Fleet's favor. Unfortunately a significant percentage of the Fleet's readily available naquadah-enhanced nuclear missiles had been expended as well. With the destruction of the facility on Eluuria many of the missiles were instead being shipped back to the Colonies for defense. He could have used a couple today, or a couple thousand.

Now he needed the goa'uld to act like the vainglorious hotheads he knew they were. From the engagements between _Valkyrie_ and her ha'tak pursuers to the probing actions on Colonial borders, the goa'uld could be goaded and tempted.

He saw weaknesses opening in the goa'uld lines and readied himself to begin to exploit them.

Something was happening in one grid. Goa'uld vessels were moving away from the planet, away from the cover of ground-based reinforcements, and the orbital plasma canons. If they continued to move forward they would open up a breach in the goa'uld lines.

The admiral considered his actions. _Could this be a trap?_ Nagala's eyes narrowed as he focused on the tactical read outs on the main display, "Enhance grid constellation-13."

"Aye, sir."

The electronic map table shifted focus from the overall battle around Delmak and focused on one particular section in the goa'uld line. The secondary screens shifted and zoomed in on the spot as well, providing real time telescopic footage to supplement the tactical overview. Instantly a number of goa'uld ships were brought into focus painting three ha'tak class motherships and five cheops class assault ships along with near a hundred gliders and fifteen al'kesh.

It was a formidable grouping of largely unscathed goa'uld warships, though one cheops was trailing debris from an earlier nuclear missile strike.

Nagala's eyes narrowed to slits and he nodded almost imperceptibly before coming to a decision. "What task group is closest to this enemy formation?"

The lieutenant tracking fleet movements looked over a series of dispatches before answering, "Strikestar group six-seven, sir."

"Dispatch orders to Sierra-Sierra-Gamma Six-Seven to engage that formation from range and then retreat to rendezvous position Beta-9. They are to use whatever means at their disposal to _encourage_ those ships out of position to pursue them. Make it clear they are to engage only at _range_."

A graphic of the orders, strikes, and retreat appeared on a secondary monitor. If everything went well the ha'taks and cheops would pursue.

"Aye, aye, sir." The lieutenant acknowledged. "Orders sent...Six-Seven Actual acknowledges, and is moving to engage."

Nagala was taking a calculated gamble. Intelligence painted the goa'uld as arrogant, vindictive and easy to provoke. And he was willing to bet that any attack from a ship of 'primitives' who would dare challenge a 'God' would play to the goa'uld's arrogance and their ego. Their desire to go forth and smash the primitive Colonials for defying them in retaliation was an ingrained response. They wanted to maintain goa'uld supremacy and curry favor with their lord. Nagala had to entice them a bit further into a mistake they couldn't recover from.

_But is this a mistake?_ He wondered. It was an opportunity, and he had to seize it. Doctrine demanded it. Goa'uld ships had maintained discipline and formation during the battle. Now a shielding element was breaking? Why?

On a secondary display a group of four battlestars and two dozen escorts Jumped in on the other side of the planet and began engaging the Goa'uld forces there, thus further sowing confusion into the Goa'uld lines. A group of ha'taks and gliders disengaged from the main lines and began their move to reinforce the rear of their formations. Gliders held in reserve from the planet were entering space and re-directing towards the dark side of the planet.

Their lines were holding.

"Impressive." Nagala replied as he observed the action for a few moments. He remained calm and detached as the electronic map shifted back to the overall situation developing over Delmak. Several Colonial warships were already down and out of the fight, and damage to their remaining forces was mounting. They needed to wrap things up here quickly.

He still had the SDR trick up his sleeve. It was almost the time to use it.

* * *

Tarapah breathed slowly as the Colonial fleet continued its assault on Sokar's prized fleet and capital. Sarqara, from all the reports, was burning. A nuclear missile had impacted the shields of the palace but the shockwave had decimated portions of the prized city.

The forces around Delmak were the home guard, powerful enough to give any System Lord pause when attacking yet these Colonials had dared to launch this attack as their opening move against Sokar! It amazed the slave admiral that they would do something so daring and, as he considered their initial successes, _fantastical_.

He had ringed up from the surface moments after the initial attack. Confusion had swept through the ranks of Sokar's command, and the goa'uld himself was on planet orchestrating the defenses from a well-protected bunker. He would of course be praised as the savior of Delmak and Sokar would undoubtedly release propaganda of himself commanding the fleet, boldly charging into battle, and damning the nuclear missiles as he closed to point-blank engagement range.

Marteen's sabotage had been precise, Tarapah realized, and more than he'd expected. The Colonials were mounting an aggressive and tenacious attack and outnumbered Sokar's own forces by a heavy margin. His ha'taks were more than a match for their battle ships but numbers mattered when it came to defense. One of the Colonial's smaller capital ships could sneak through their lines and lay waste to a continent with naquadah missiles. Tarapah could see the sensor blips of a squadron of Colonial warships battering industrial regions of Delmak with nuclear missiles virtually unopposed. With so much of Sokar's empire resting on the industrial output of this single planet Tarapah knew the consequences of failure.

He would have to give the Colonials a fight but today would be the last he would serve in slavery to a madman.

To starboard a ha'tak cracked under the strain of naquadah missiles and kinetic barrage. Its reactor breached the vessel exploded into countless pieces. The glider screen was incinerated instantly in the rapidly expanding plasma fireball.

The alien admiral's head ticked and he felt the pain return. _You must be patient_… he thought. The pain grew and quickly diminished. His lips ticked and curled and he scratched with his talons into his throne's arm.

"Send our wings out three hundred," he ordered. Two ha'taks accelerated and picked their targets and obliterated a squadron of the dart-like Colonial fighter craft. "Interesting," he noted, as more fighter craft and their tan gunships appeared. They were fast and agile and he admired the skill of the pilots.

One of the Colonial battlestars came under a withering rain of plasma fire. Tarapah smirked as the battlestar blinked away, and golden-yellow plasma streaked by. His tactical display showed dozens of small blips emerge at almost point blank range on the ha'tak. The enemy strike craft, which intercepts knew were called 'raptors' peppered the ha'tak with missile fire. They jumped away as soon as they were done unleashing their munitions, to little effect. A few turrets and defensive batteries were all that were damaged.

Suddenly a blinding white light filled the tactical display, which instantly activated dimmers. Sensors registered nuclear blasts against the ha'tak's shields, which held, but barely. The massive warship was alive but scarred, with a deep crater amidships on the forward side of the pyramid superstructure, and part of its secondary structure was nothing but support beams and twisted metals.

"Jaffa, relay the following orders to wings seven and eight. Send orders to wing seven and wing eight they may engage targets at all. Send wing five out to the following coordinates and order them to hold until new orders are relayed." Tarapah transferred the commands from his command chair station to the pair of jaffa manning communications. They hesitated. "Do it."

Seconds later the formation of goa'uld vessels began to break. Wing seven split into three separate forces while wing eight began to withdraw to reinforce the far side of the planet. A ha'tak and cheops from wing five disregarded his orders to hold back and instead began to drive forward which left a group of cheops without ready reinforcement. It would leave the main battle line and the orbital defenses in a precarious position. Tarapah could already see the Colonial forces reacting and taking advantage of his orders.

The admiral closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. A sudden stabbing pain distracted him and forced his hand. Tarapah tapped his console and sent a direct signal to the storage bays aboard the command vessel and the other ha'taks. His command codes disabled internal sensors without alerting the jaffa on the pel'tak or the Necropolis Guard standing watch and maintaining combat 'discipline.'

"My lord," a jaffa reported, "Amuntan Neberatu reports that we are to move our forces closer to the planet, reform our lines along the equatorial region, and intercept the infidel forces attempting to attack-"

The jaffa halted his report as the view screen materialized the goa'uld under lord. "_Tarapah, you are to break attack and focus on the defense of Delmak. Why have you ordered your wings from the main battle line?"_

The admiral bowed his head. "With respect, amuntan, we can win the day if-" the image fuzzed and blurred. He smirked as it blanked out.

* * *

The seven strikestars of Group Six-Seven had been lingering in space, just outside the main line of battle. Their guns had been mostly silent, and their tubes were mostly full. They were a reserve force, standbys, to engage targets of opportunity. Around the assembled strikestars dozens of Raptors and Vipers buzzed by, providing protection against gliders and al'kesh though few of the goa'uld craft had closed to do much to antagonize Six Seven.

The commander of Group Six-Seven, Veronica Palmer, was young for a battle group commander but had excelled in simulations and had commanded against Sagittaron terrorist insurrectionists in the Colonies' outer territories. Now Admiral Nagala gave Commander Palmer the opportunity to prove her mettle. He knew she was a tenacious fighter, could take the initiative, but wasn't a hotshot. Her orders were short and concise- engage at range and draw the enemy out. She knew the limitation of her vessels.

Commander Palmer had watched those vessels as they had maneuvered into a higher orbit, further away from their goa'uld comrades and from the cover of the heavy weapons and ground side support the planet offered.

Even if the movements were traps, the commander was confident in her group's ability to shoot and scoot. If needed they could jump, though that would take them out of the battle and leave a flank dangerously exposed to high speed attack.

The ships of Six Seven were almost completely reliant upon missile armament for long range strikes and were capable of depleting their entire magazines within minutes with massed salvos. Hundreds of tubes with thousands of missiles dotted the ventral and dorsal aspects of the flat, almost triangular strikestars.

Unfortunately the reliance on missiles left the strike stars with few heavy canons, and the tubes were weak points in the armors belts. Topside and bottom side hits could be fatal. The Cylons had been quick to exploit the weaknesses of the strikestars during the war. Even fully armed strikestars suffered as the Cylons had the annoying habit of disabling or disrupting a missiles guidance system mid flight. What was theoretically possible for a single missile-laden strikestar to do, destroy a fleet of Raiders or cripple a squadron of baseships had proved impossible.

Despite such limitations many strikestars still persisted to this day, though they were slowly being phased out in favor of the more balanced attackstars and assaultstars equipped with more advanced fire controls, heavier canons, thicker armor, and more powerful engines. The attackstar would relegate the strikestar to mothballs within the next decade.

In this moment the ability to fire massed salvos of missiles would benefit the strikestars and Admiral Nagala's plans. Their silos were filled with powerful nuclear stone burner missiles and acacus anti-ship missiles. The silo doors of Six-Seven began to open. Forward launchers spat out jiggers and drones and EW mites which began to throw off goa'uld scanners, and _Silent Shade_ directed some of its powerful EW equipment towards that section of space.

Within seconds the seven strikestars had fired hundreds of missiles in the initial salvo, many of them equipped with penetration aides and decoys. Seconds later another, somewhat smaller salvo was fired, followed against by a smaller third salvo.

The death gliders and al'kesh moved forward to intercept the missiles but decoys popping from the missile boosters threw off their aim, though quite a few died to their fire. The Point defense guns on the Goa'uld ships opened fire, downing dozens of missiles despite the jamming but the rest slammed home on the Goa'uld ships. The shields absorbed and refracted the bulk of the hits putting moderate strain on their shield grid.

Unknown to the Colonials the goa'uld ship commanders yearned to engage, but fear of retribution from their own commanders, and the ever watchful gaze of Necropolis Guard kept them from immediately breaking. Until one ha'tak began to waver and move forward, out of formation. It was enough.

While the Colonial commander may not have known what words were exchanged between the goa'uld commanders and their fleet command, something had unbound them from their defense of the planet.

The other vessels in the squadron broke from their orbit of Delmak and accelerated to give chase to the Colonial warships. Long-range plasma fire, thrown off by Colonial electronic warfare went wide and high and low. The strikestars accelerated away, firing missiles as little more than potshots at their pursuers.

Over the course of several minutes the distance between the two forces steadily decreased as the goa'uld squadron closed the gap. Without warning the ships of Six Seven turned sharply. Their guns aligned as they orientated on the Goa'uld squadron, and missile tubes popped open as the ships waited till the enemy reached optimal firing range.

Once released from their defensive positions the goa'uld charged in like rampaging bulls as their ships unleashed a full barrage of plasma from range. The Colonials strikestars maneuvered to evade but the shots of the gunners of the Goa'uld squadron proved true as plasma rounds punched through huge chunks of armor and melted hull plating where it connected. The Colonials returned fire; missile magazines were emptied at a frightening rate as they unleashed their ordinance on the advancing Goa'uld ships.

The concept of the strikestar was an old one that went back to the fourth Colonial Conflict. just as the Colonies were beginning to truly grasp just how devastating a first strike jump capable ship could be. Designed from the ground up with robust jump engines and massive missile magazines the strikestars were used to devastating effectiveness in the Fourth and Fifth Colonial Conflicts. They were the feared first-strike weapons of Caprica and Picon. Admiral Cain had used the Tauron copy of the strikestar to annihilate a Caprican battle fleet early in the Fifth Colonial Conflict, cementing the military's desire to build more.

And from the FCAC Admiral Nagala watched as the goa'uld vessels took the bait, and as the blips on his tactical plot began to show the damage the ha'taks were inflicting on his ships. A commander brought him an update on the battlestars on the far side of the planet.

"Lieutenant, relay orders to Battlestar Group Nine-Two to jump and begin their attack on that goa'uld formation." Nagala highlighted the relevant warships. "All battlestars equipped with SDS's are authorized to deploy them."

The order was passed and new green blips appeared. Battlestars, attackstars, and assaultstars jumped in near perfect formation and materialized from the void of FTL to position themselves between and above and below the goa'uld and the strikestars, which continued their acceleration but dove down, to clear the screen Nine-Two presented and launch additional missiles.

From the FCAC Nagala could visualize the battle. The battlestars' massive axial canons would launch the projectiles at a fraction of light speed, impact the goa'uld energy shields and release exotic particles that would play merry havoc on the goa'uld shields. Or so was the prediction.

Nagala turned one of the wireless speakers to the channel Nine-Two's commander was on; Rear Admiral Jason Martin, stationed aboard the command battlestar _Pegasus_.

"Jason, this is up to you now. Exploit their hubris, get them to bleed. It's your show."

"_Affirmative, sir. We'll give them fraking hell and make them pay."_

"Very good." He hung up the handheld.

_Pegasus_ began the barrage with four SDRs, followed quickly by two more salvos at the closest ha'tak. The massive shells impacted and lightning seemed to crackle over the forward sections of the ha'tak's shields. Missiles from the strikestars and heavy kinetic rounds from Nine-Two impacted seconds later. The shields flared, but many of the rounds and missiles made it through.

Without their shields to protect them, the goa'uld hulls could not withstand the onslaught of dozens of multi-ton kinetic shells and heavy anti-ship missiles slamming into a concentrated portion of its hull. The first ha'tak exploded in a brilliant fireball.

The other battlestars of _Pegasus_'s group began opening fire with their own SD shells. The goa'uld forces recoiled from the easy kill. But Admiral Nagala knew the goa'uld would fight even more viciously now that they knew the Colonial Fleet could penetrate their shields.

On the screen an attackstar went down to a withering fire of plasma. It was lost with all hands: two thousand, four hundred, and fifty-two souls were with the Lords of Kobol now.

"It's fraking bueitful, sir," Nagala heard Amorak whisper. "They work. This fight has to be over soon."

_No, this fight it far from over_ the Admiral knew. And his eyes focused on Battlestar Group Four-One…

"Major-"

"Oh, gods! No…" Amorak's voice squeaked.

Nagala turned quickly. Amorak was holding a small tablet. He saw pain, horror wash over her. On the tablet was readout of a DRADIS. It was detailed, sector/quadrant specific and set to show the local space surrounding a Raptor squadron. He didn't give it another thought. Whatever happened it was her worry. The battle was his.

* * *

Commander Adama's _Valkyrie_ was in the thick of the battle and answering every plasma strike and al'kesh bomb with missiles and shells of her own. Her guns thundered as they trained on a group of gliders, and her missile tubes were being reloaded and prepped for yet another salvo into the enemy's maw. She had expended more ammunition in the last half hour than she had in nearly a year.

Tasked with attacking a weaker formation on the far side of the battle, _Valkyrie_, along with her sister ships _Yashuman_ and _Fenrir_ and _Ragnarok_ were a hunter-killer pack of battlestars. Fast, capable of supporting themselves should they be separated, and incredibly deadly, Battlestar Group 41 was unleashing a fury down upon the ha'tak and trio of al'kesh bombers it had caught separated from the main formation of Sokar's defense fleet.

Adama's position was one of honor in the Fleet and highly prized. The hunter-killer group was trusted by the fleet commander to make snap decisions on where to attack and defend and where to reinforce the main line. It was a position that meant the commander was trusted by his superiors and had the skill necessary to pull off such an assignment.

_Valkyrie_ rolled and Adama felt the pull of her internal gravity plates and anti-gee compensators fight against physics. A plasma bolt slashed at _Valkyrie_'s bow and made brief contact with her armor belt. Not enough to completely destabilize the magnetic bottle of the plasma but enough to burn and sear the gray into a black char.

"Send Raptor squadron zero-two to these coordinates and move covering fire out at carrim two-one, Saul."

"Aye, sir." The XO relayed the orders to the tactical officers. The CIC was teeming with personnel at every station, and medics waiting in the corners, ready to tend to injury. A double compliment of Marines was stationed both inside and outside CIC, should the jaffa attempt to board.

The DRADIS plot began to change as gliders were felled by the battlestar's canons and missiles. Raptors unleashed holy hell upon the ha'tak and her point defense guns were consumed with an overwhelming number of targets. _Ragnarok_ began dropping additional EW mites and drones and quickly accelerated.

From a distance of thousands of kilometers glider pilots couldn't see the battlestar. Even the signs of red-hot armor and the orange glow of metal slag were too faint. And the EW mites and drones painted a sensor image of where _Ragnarok_ was not.

Being the EW mites Raptor gunships waited. As gliders closed in the gunships accelerated and fired a flurry of medium-range missiles from their pods. Some missiles went wide from glider EW suites, some were shot down as glider pilots switched to a lower powered and higher rate of fire on their guns, but like many strategies that day, it proved futile. Six of seven gliders were annihilated. The seventh ejected when a missile's proximity sensor detonated and sent shrapnel to tear into the glider's wing and stabilizer units.

Adama watched the DRADIS as a duo of al'kesh began an attack run. Caught off-guard and surrounded by the battlestars the bomber pilots made a bold attack on _Yashuman_. Backed by a half dozen gliders the small attack force fought tenaciously, felling a Viper and forcing a Raptor's pilots to eject, but their numbers were insufficient to breach the flak fields and defensive missile fire from the fast attack battlestar.

He'd seen the skills of the jaffa pilots and their goa'uld squadron commanders vary wildly during this battle. No doubt many of these pilots were recruits or second-line pilots. System Lords were known to send their best pilots to the front lines.

Adama had read untold piles of binders and pages upon pages of briefs on Sokar and everything FID had collected themselves, convinced Rhadmet to spill, or talked the tok'ra and others into giving them. He was a smart System Lord, better at seeing the strategic and tactical, but was ultimately bound by his egotism and arrogance. The attributes of the goa'uld race were what kept the goa'uld from completely dominating this battle with their superior technology. Adama knew an enemy commander not infected with the sociopathic tendencies and illusions of god-hood could truly make the Colonials _bleed_ for this victory.

Admiral Nagala had told them to exploit that arrogance and draw goa'uld into battle. And as the battle with this ha'tak finished, Adama was already setting his eyes on a juicy and isolated target.

Light missiles impacted the secondary hull and the alpha side of the pyramid, doing little damage. But a nuclear missile from _Fenrir_ dug into the ha'tak and exploded. A thirty meter crater appeared in the pyramid and secondary explosions rocked the vessel. It fired back wildly at _Fenrir_ and _Valkyrie_. A few plasma bolts vaporized a Raptor and two Vipers into atoms.

_Yashuman_ closed ranged and headed straight on the ha'tak as it fired its heavy canons and missile batteries. Raptors took guarding positions and let loose with their missiles, only to see many divert and miss. So close to the ha'tak the goa'uld jamming was intense. A glider managed to move through the fighter screen and destroy a Raptor, killing both pilot and ECO, and heavily damage a second forcing a punch out before being annihilated by a pair of Viper's light missiles.

The other battlestars began to take formation around the damaged ha'tak, which was firing wildly. Plasma continued to score direct hits but the vessel was so damaged it couldn't maintain its energy reserves. Capacitors on the ha'tak drained faster than the naquadah power core would recharge them.

Adama ordered the ships into a tight maneuver, one at high speed, and one that took precision and skill. Plasma shots began going wide and the battlestars focused their fire onto the tip of the pyramid, close to the pel'tak. Shields flared and armor buckled.

_Valkyrie_ became the center of attention of the diminishing goa'uld group. Plasma strikes melted a forward battery and killed half a dozen crewmen instantly. An energy bomb fired at range by an al'kesh impact on the ventral surface and blew through multiple decks. The battlestar momentarily lost part of its ventral targeting systems until auxiliaries kicked in and EW Raptors linked with the battlestar's fire control.

The last al'kesh attempted a suicide run on _Valkyrie_, which held her course until the last minute. Massive RCS thruster in the nose and flight pods allowed the massive battlestar to 'tilt down' and the al'kesh missed. It was annihilated by a hail of canon fire and missiles from _Valkyrie_'s air wing.

The ha'tak exploded in a magnificent ball of fire and debris. Part of its pyramid tumbled towards Delmak while nearly a third of its secondary structure remained intact and hurled at incredibly speeds towards _Fenrir_, which effortlessly avoided the debris by dozens of kilometers.

Commander Adama eyed the next target: a command ship that was damaged and trailing debris. It retained a cheops and near a dozen al'kesh as cover. He glanced at the DRADIS and at his command plot. The al'kesh were in a tight formation… _Yashuman_'s FTL was spooled, and there were dozens of reserve Raptors on deck waiting.

They could come in fast, draw the al'kesh away. He ordered a high resolution DRADIS of the command ship and smirked. Its shields were faltering on its aft sections and it was moving too slowly to be under full power and her aft plasma canons were almost all vaporized. The cheops was covering the blindside. He realized he may not be able to get the command ship, but he'd take a cheops at the moment then…

There was movement out there. An opportunity presented itself if they timed it right.

Conventional wisdom demanded Adama recall the birds and re-arm and reform his squadron. But he was far from conventional. And Colonial doctrine demanded aggressiveness… "Ready a salvo of SDRs and full burn towards the command ship. Raptor squadrons are to begin a combat disengagement. Reserve squadron seven and nine are to deploy with nuclear missiles and await orders five hundred to the rear of the formation." Adama sensed hesitation. "Saul?"

"Sir…" Tigh reported, "Premie's Raptor has been shot down."

* * *

Tarapah couldn't hide his elation as a ha'tak was ripped to pieces by barrage after barrage of Colonial canon and missile fire. Golden armor charred from battle broke apart and was explosively propelled in all direction. It was _beautiful_.

"The _Kalantuk_ has been destroyed, my lord," a jaffa reported. "Sensors are detecting additional barrages of nuclear weaponry being readied."

If that ha'tak were fully manned, with boarding parties and jaffa soldiers, nearly three thousand were dead. The Old Spirits would be outraged by his delight in so many deaths, but the Old Spirits had long ago abandoned his people and left them to suffer under the goa'uld overlords. _Unless those tales by the crèche mothers were nothing but lies and exaggerations_, he considered.

He hummed. "Jaffa, send me the sensor data on their weaponry."

The Colonials were using some sort of new technology which was disrupting the shield grids of Sokar's vessels and bathing them in some sort of exotic particle he had no knowledge of. He had to admire their ignorant tenacity. Who else but ignorant fanatics would attack the capital world of the most powerful System Lord in what was an obvious and desperate attack to decapitate his empire and hope it fragmented? _Ignorant, quite true, but daring, and that is admirable in a way…_ the alien thought. _Their tactics are intriguing but…_

The admiral rapped his claws on the hand rest and leaned back on the command ship's throne. He felt bones cracks as tension released and he dropped his shoulders, which were aching. This day would be satisfying.

The admiral had little love for the Colonials and knew little about them; who they were, what they fought for, and what they would _die _for were inconsequential details at this point. The goa'uld would make _them_ pay. The goa'uld would suffer and when the goa'uld wrecked their unholy retribution upon the Colonials for this attack they would die.

How many civilizations had stood against the unstoppable force of the Goa'uld Dynasty and lived? The goa'uld could suffer defeat after defeat yet they would always return. Tarapah knew how to exploit their rigid and bloody schemes of vengeance, yet they were _animals_ who would never stop. That made them dangerous. _And that is why I know the Colonials will lose this war_.

Tarapah was brought out of his brooding and his focus on the battle by a succession of quick staff blasts. A scream. A howl. The smell of ozone was instantaneous as was the burning flesh. He shot up and out of the chair and grabbed his pistol from a thigh holster, but his Necropolis Guard- the ones on his pel'tak- were pointing their staffs at him.

Three of the Dashmed jaffa were dead, cored by deadly staff blasts from the rear of the pel'tak. Their bodies smoked. Bits of muscle and bone were sticking to consoles.

He snarled.

Neberatu stood with a half dozen Necropolis Guard. They leveled staffs at the remaining Dashmed Guard and other jaffa controlling the pel'tak and the battle. The goa'uld amuntan glared at Tarapah.

Tarapah smirked, to the best he could with his reptilian mouth. "My lord Neberatu, you grace us with you… presence," he hissed. "I thought you were trapped on the planet when the shields were raised. Lord Sokar will be most displeased to know you are interfering with _my_ defense of _his_ capital."

The amuntan sneered at the alien. "Your treachery is revealed, slave. You manipulated this battle, and your tok'ra agent disrupted our efforts from the surface." He threw down a holographic projector, and an image of him and Marteen on the command ship materialized. Neberatu came forward, unafraid of the strength and killer-instincts of the alien. He was absolute in his superiority over the alien slave admiral. "Your people… their lives… they are now _over._ Jaffa." The goa'uld snapped his fingers and the Necropolis Guard opened fire on the pel'tak crew. Some tried to dodge, some tried to take cover, but they were all quickly killed. "Relay orders to the fleet to begin a combat… _reposition_… to location three and take defensive formation above Sarqara. Inform ship commanders we will await reinforcements from our outer fleets." Neberatu moved forward. "You may have sabotagued our long range communications, but the chappa'ai still functions, _slave_."

No one was manning the communication stations, the sensors, the EW, and the other stations necessary to coordinate a battle.

Tarapah rolled his eyes. Even this momentary lapse in command and control would lead to more goa'uld losses.

Neberatu was too quick. He grabbed the alien by the neck and lifted him and threw him towards the command station. Tarapah hit it with a smack and he felt a crack. His entire body ached. Bones were surely broken.

"No, Neberatu. This empire will fall today." His eyes were hazy and glassy, he had a concussion, but he stood slowly. "The goa'uld have lorded over this galaxy for too long and enslaved worlds and massacred countless civilizations." He slammed his fist. "_No more_."

"Is that-"

Gunfire erupted in the corridor and in the rear of the pel'tak. There was screaming from outside and a heart stopping metal-on-metal pounding of feet. Neberatu ordered the Guard to form up. As the pel'tak's hatch swung open a Necropolis Guardsman yelled and was thrown from the rear to the pillars behind the throne with a ferocious force which snapped him in two.

Tall, blindly fast, and gray on black armored mechanical soldiers stormed into the pel'tak. One was felled by multiple staff blasts, and a second had its arm blown to pieces, but still advanced. The one with no arm fired a heavy rifle and bullets sprayed into a Necropolis Guardsman too fast for his shields to compensate and his body convulsed from the rounds before dropping.

A third and fourth were in and fired their own weapons. Blue balls of energy leapt through the air with ear piercing crackles and lashed out at the Necropolis Guard. Guardsmen went down, like their shields weren't even there. Their bodies lay broken on the command deck.

With a reaction time bordering on super human Neberatu activated his shield just as the energy blasts contacted. His shield crackled and hissed but held. He flung his hand up and fired a kinetic blast, which sent one of the mechanical soldiers flying back. He ducked as his shield came under a withering storm of bullets and energy rounds

A guardsman made a foolish attempt at melee with the mechanical soldiers and was torn in three; his arm was ripped from its socket and as he collapsed in agony and shock his head was wrenched free of his body and hurled as a missile towards another jaffa which knocked that jaffa off his feet.

Staff blasts hit wildly around the pel'tak, but the Guardsmen re-formed into a defensive line behind consoles, and for precious seconds had stalled the surprise attack. Bullets kept them down. Some sort of explosive device was hurled towards the jaffa. One was killed in the blast. Another knocked unconscious.

"What abominations are these?" Neberatu demanded with a heated roar as blasts impacted his shield. He grabbed Tarapah and held his neck. He squeezed.

There was the muffled sound of gunfire and staff blasts coming from the corridor. Tarapah could see the readouts for the command ship going crazy as firefights were erupting in all portions of the superstructure.

"Do you yield?" A female voice asked, calm and composed. There were three mechanical soldiers now. They stood by the voice, but their weapons were raised. "Do you yield to us, Amuntan Neberatu, loyal servant of Lord Sokar? Soon we will have this vessel, as well as many others. Do you wish to leave with your life?"

"Who are they?" The goa'uld hissed to the alien. "Tell me now," he whispered as he kept his grip.

"They are your end," Tarapah answered definitely.

Neberatu threw him away and stood with his remaining jaffa. Blood trickled down a gash in his forehead and his chest heaved up and down. He was sweating from battle and his armor was stifling. "You have been the ones raiding our worlds, have you not?" The woman, tall and platinum haired smiled brightly at the goa'uld. "To whom do you swear your allegiance?" Once this battle was won Neberatu swore he would hunt these heretics down to the satellite galaxies if he must.

"Our allegiance?" She walked forward unafraid. "It's to our god. You will meet him." Her hands were spread wide, palms out.

Neberatu quickly raised his kara kesh and fired a kinetic blast into the chest of the woman. She slammed into the bulkhead and her head was caved in. Her lifeless eyes were open. The machines opened fire. The goa'uld grabbed Tarapah and threw him towards the front of the pel'tak. "Jaffa!"

His jaffa were brave in their defense. Their defeat was inevitable. Each jaffa was struck by bullets and crackling energy blasts before they could fire more than a single staff blast each, and machines knew no fear. Neberatu leapt over a console as bullets pinged on his shields and he slammed his fish into his kara kesh.

A hidden ring transporter descended from a concealed false bulkhead in the deck. It enveloped him and the alien admiral and in a flash they were gone.

* * *

Gliders and al'kesh again moved forward and were more successful this time in intercepting missiles. Point defense gun of the goa'uld squadron proved marginally better as they accumulated a number of hits. But many more Colonial missiles made it through to strike against the goa'uld sheilds in blinding flashes of nuclear furry that put heavy strain on one of the ha'taks as well as the cheops class ships.

Sensor systems on the goa'uld ships momentarily went to standby mode to filter out the harsh radiation surge from the nuclear blasts. But when they came back online they showed a chilling picture that left the senior salatis commander of the squadron realizing he'd been played for a fool. For the sensors didn't show seven ships that would be easily crushed by his squadron, but two dozen of them!

And two of those ships, the two heaviest were launching hundreds of fighters...

Upon receiving the word from Strikestar Group 67, two augmented battlestar groups jumped in a full sphere around the Goa'uld squadron. Immediately the two battlestars and their escorts began opening fire with full salvos from their kinetic cannons while missile tubes were emptied of ordinance in a concentrated and precise ring of fire on the ha'taks and their escorts.

The battlestars fired salvos of the new SDRs, which punched into the shields and sent emitters into shut down as the shields destabilized. Holes began opening in entire sections of the shields which left the armor- still thick and strong- exposed to kinetic, missile, and nuclear attack.

A naquadah nuke impacted the secondary structure of a ha'tak. In blinding white flash it lost a quarter of its canons as they were vaporized. And a chunk of hull which left hundreds of jaffa dead and many more exposed to fatal doses of extreme radiation.

In the augmented squadrons Vipers shot from their launch tubes and formed up into squadrons. Raptors launched from the large cavernous landing bays and formed up behind them. The Raptors were equipped as gunships, with missile pods that could take down entire enemy squadrons, light and fast-firing canons, medium range missiles, and decoys to throw off the weaker sensors of gliders and al'kesh.

Within a matter of moments more than three hundred Colonial strike craft had formed up and moved to engage the seriously outnumbered gliders and al'kesh.

_Gorgon_ and Commander Vasic led one of the battlestar groups. But within the group was a battlestar that needed no introduction: the grand old lady of the fleet, _Galactica._

No ship in the fleet held as many battle honors as she and few ships could match the name with the kind of awe and respect that it commanded and inspired. You could count them on one hand with at least two fingers to spare, and their namesakes were also present for this battle. The only other vessels that came close to matching _Galactica_'s battle honors were the battlestars _Pegasus_ and _Atlantia_. And even those did not match the awe-inspiring tales that were continually retold in the V-world and on television.

Though she still retained all her guns and a full armor belt from the war, and few ships could put out the sheer volume of fire like the _Columbia_ Class, the truth was...she was getting old.

Newer ships in the fleet had more pristine hulls with sharper and neater lines. Their armor was newer, made from better alloys and materials. Their engines were more powerful and their tyllium power plants designed to put out for more power. Their guns were spaced and integrated more smoothly into their designs, centrally controlled and electronically targeted for maximum accuracy. _Galactica's_ hull was flater, worn and scuffed from over 40 years of service. Her armor was lined with minor bumps and dents in her plating where meteor impacts and patches from old battle damage lined her main hull and flight pods like scars, each one telling a tale of the proud old ship and her venerable career.

She was outdated compared to the new monsters of the fleet that patrolled the space ways_. Galactica _and her class were barely half the size of the newer _Mercury _class ships replacing them. They were slower and not as heavily built as the _Mercury_ class. The capacitor systems of the _Mercurys_ tripled that of _Galactica _and her remaining sisters, and they could soak up much more firepower due to their sheer size and mass. Punishment the _Galactica_ and her sisters could not hope to take.

The tylium reactors of the _Mercury _class gave them a three fold power increase, their jump drives twice as powerful and more accurate, and their air wings doubled the size that of _Galactica_ and her class.

They were the true inheritors of the fleet. But against the power of Goa'uld ships they were already inadequate. They were designed to fight the next generation of hypothesized Cylon vessels. Not ships equipped with energy shields, exotic armor plating and even more frightening real and deadly energy weaponry. Only the quick modified by Fleet scientists like Amorak and Baltar, and new doctrines rapidly developed from the mere handfuls of engagements Fleet battlestars had had with the goa'uld made these vessels more than just sitting ducks.

Even with the modifications made to the battlestars they were not the enemy ship killers they had been designed to be. A _Mercury_ was supposed to take on two next generation Cylon baseships and win, and stand a decent chance against three. _Alone._ But with a ha'tak a _Mercury_ had to rely on its impressive ability to take damage and keep on dishing it out in return, but also its escorts and its sister battlestars.

_Galactica's_ guns shifted to the far left ha'tak and opened fire. Massed salvo's of heavy kinetic shells slammed into the sheilds of the Goa'uld warship with colossal force. But for all intents and purposes she might as well have been throwing spitballs at a tank. The Kinetic cannon had been a mainstay of the Colonial fleet since the beginning of Colonial space flight.

A simple and solid weapon it had proven its worth time and again in countless colonial conflicts. During the Fifth Colonial Conflict and the Cylon war kinetic cannon technology had rapidly advanced to counter the heavy armor plating of Cylon Baseships. And though the war ended nearly 40 years ago, research and development continued. The foreward super-heavy spinal cannons of the _Mercury_ class were the latest evolution of that ongoing process.

But against the hardened energy shields of goa'uld ships the guns were far less effective than the fleet hoped for.

Right now the main guns of _Galactica_ rained down shells on her target in withering salvos while her secondary guns shifted to flak mode and established a flak feild between her and the Goa'uld ships. Around her, the escorting Attackstars and Gunstars also opened up with their primary weapons; splitting their fire between the Ha'tak and the two Cheops ships supporting it.

The goa'uld ships returned fire. Heavy and medium plasma bolts crossed the void of space within seconds to slam into the armored belts of the colonial warships. The scene was repeated along the right flank of the goa'uld squadron with the _Gorgon_ and her escorts. This close to the goa'uld ships their weapons fire was proving unnervingly accurate.

Twenty thousand kilometers away a brief muted flash of blue/white light signaled the arrival of a new combatant onto this field, far enough to stay out of the line of fire as the two sides traded blows. Coated in DRADIS absorbent materials and outfitted with a specialized ECM jamming gear the _Bezerker_ class ship _Silent Shade _had departed from the protection of _Atlantia_ to better aide this critical part of the battle.

The _Silent Shade _drew power to her jamming equipment and then cut loose; blasting noise all along the subspace spectrum the goa'uld were theorized to use.

A noticeable effect soon became apparent in the battle as several main gun shots that should have hit _Galactica_ and _Gorgon_ squarely, went wide. To add to the confusion the _Galactica_ and _Gorgon_ launched decoys of their own to make the Goa'uld believe they were battling nine battlestars rather than two.

The al'kesh and death gliders proved to be just as affected by the jamming as the larger Ha'taks, as their speculative ranging shots on the swiftly approaching Vipers proved way off the mark. The forward Viper squadrons closed in to optimal firing range and launched a full salvo of missiles. The goa'uld craft responded by breaking formation and scattering and activating their own jamming equipment. More than half of the missiles missed, either losing their target lock on or spoofed by the goa'uld jamming. But the rest held true and slammed into their chosen targets.

Two al'kesh were vaporized outright, hit with multiple missiles that overwhelmed their light shielding. More than a dozen gliders also suffered the same fate as the Colonial missile strikes hit home, leaving the goa'uld formation unprepared for what happened next.

The Vipers pressed their attack with gusto, hitting their turbos and accelerating at full speed to break the disorganized Jaffa unit even further and isolating them from support fire from their motherships. Plasma and projectiles crisscrossed in space as gliders tried to defend themselves from Viper pairs as the two sides closed to gun range.

A muted blue/white flash signaled the arrival of the battlestar _Atlantia_ a mere ten thousand kilometers from the lead goa'uld ha'tak. The ship and her escorts jumping in without having been detected by the Goa'uld squadron to her front, and thus sealing their fate. The _Atlantia_ aligned herself to where her forward bow batteries aligned to the lead ha'tak. Loaded with SDRs and her tubes ready with nukes she fired.

* * *

**FCAC**  
**Battlestar **_**Atlantia**_

"Jump completed, DRADIS shows the Goa'uld squadron forward of us, almost perfectly aligned with the bow batteries. No DRADIS or sensor sweeps of our position. We remain undetected, Admiral."

"Very good." Nagala nodded as he studied the main display which SINGINT had identified as the lead ha'tak for this goa'uld force. He slowly walked forward to the display table and removed the phone that linked him to the ships CIC. "Commander Martins, you may engage at your discretion. The SDR's seem to be working well against the other ha'taks. Let's say we use them on this command ship, yes?"

_"Aye, aye sir." _The Commander acknowledged. Nagala hung up the phone. He was content to run the battle from the FCAC room and let the _Atlantia's_ commander run the ship from CIC.

On the main display the _Atlantia_ maneuvered slightly to bring its bow batteries into optimal firing position. Within moments the muffled boom, boom, boom-boom of the ships spinal cannons fired and the deck plates rattled as heavy rounds shot from _Altantia's _main guns flew down range and hit the lead ha'tak squarely.

Nagala cursed. The ha'tak had moved between his vessel and the other battlestar's and the command ship. It had effectively served as the sacrificial lamp for their opening salvo. _A salvo we can ill-afford to waste_, the admiral thought, _with limited SDRs_…

Just like from the other battlestar groups the SDRs worked, more or less. The rounds made contact and eighty percent of them were successful in properly releasing their disruptive and exotic sub-atomic particles. The shields were bathed in these particles, which to Admiral Nagala's knowledge Baltar had named after some exotic locale on Caprica or Picon, and the shields glowed as they interacted with those particles. It was quite beautiful to watch but Nagala could ill-afford to watch it for long.

The battlestars were committed to taking out the pyramid ship that was so ready to sacrifice itself. A follow on salvo hit the ha'tak and then a third before the shields began to falter and allow kinetic rounds and missiles in.

_Atlantia's_ main guns barked yet again as another full barrage slammed into the covering ha'tak. Half a dozen rounds managed to slip through the shields and impact the hull of the ha'tak; two on the pyramid itself and four on the secondary structure. Holes were bored through armor and massive secondary explosions erupted, yet the ha'tak stood firm and still fired back.

_They are quite well built, and very impressive little ships_ the admiral thought as he gave his enemy a bit of quiet praise. An aide rushed by and almost bumped into him. The apology was ignored.

Sensing an opportunity and without having to be told the _Atlantia_ and her group along with support from the _Gorgon_ and _Galactica_ and their escorts opened up with a full flurry of fire. Kinetic canon rounds and nuclear missiles hammered into the ha'tak and until it erupted in a massive explosion.

A trio of low-yield nuclear missiles slamming into the lower portion of the pyramid led to a massive energy spike- the power core losing containment- and then an explosion blasted out of the bottom of the pyramid structure and out the tip. Then more explosions ripped through the vessel.

"Target destroyed sir."

"Coordinate with _Galactica_ and _Gorgon_. Shift fire to the main command ship."

"Aye sir."

"Sir, we've noticed a considerable drop in communications from the command ship here, sir." A colonel highlighted the ship they'd targeted on the DRADIS. "We're also picking up internal explosions."

Nagala narrowed his eyes. "What's happening over there?"

"Unknown but there seems to be a near eight hundred percent increase in com traffic from at least a dozen ha'taks…" the colonel cupped his ear and typed in something at his station, "admiral, they're distress calls. On open channels!"

"Pipe it over here, colonel."

The distress call came in jaffa and the computer began translating. There was significant static. Colonial sub-space communication receivers jury rigged by Amorak and her team were hardly worthy of the name at this point. The words were difficult to understand and jumbled. "…_abominations… massive casualties… soldiers… how did they get aboard…"_

Nagala listened. Then a sound sent a chill down his spine and caused his eyes to go wide. He heard a noise. Footsteps. Too familiar. _Those footsteps… the sounds they made… unmistakable… _

"Admiral…." Bannon was there.

The transmission was cut from the source. Static and interference began to wash out the DRADIS. Something was putting out a massive amount of active interference.

"Isolate the interference," Nagala ordered. He saw Major Amorak rush over to the communication's station and almost push aside the colonel and his two senior chiefs. She was doing _something_, but it worked.

The sounds were clear. The footsteps and the sounds they made rung in the ears of every man and woman in the FCAC. It seemed to all stop. Time was at a standstill. They heard the gunshots, they heard the screams. But they heard the footsteps.

Then the transmission cut out. And like a spell the sailors were back, furiously organizing the Fleet's reaction and coordinating with all other vessels.

"Admiral, those were _Cylons_." Bannon whispered.

"Aboard goa'uld vessels? How?" He snapped. He jabbed a finger towards Bannon. "How the _frak_ are there Cylons here?"

The commander's eyes were glassy and hazed. "I…" he shook his head, "I don't know… this… it could be a trap."

The admiral licked dry lips. "The fleet's damaged, ordnance is expended… the Cylons know where every ship is. Damnit!" Nagala felt his heart begin to pound. A drop of sweat trickled down his brow. "Relay orders to the Fleet to-"

"Sir… something just _jumped_ in two million klicks away. It's putting out intense interference. We can't get a DRADIS picture of it… just soup, sir, undefined."

Nagala had a lump in his throat. His display was showing something, that was true, but it was marked 'unknown'. "Do any ships have visuals? And order all reserve pilots into their birds." He cupped his chin. "If this is a Cylon trap, commander… we retreat we lose almost all our strike craft. They know we won't, we _can't_." _We'd lose tens of thousands between them and our disabled ships_…

"Status, lieutenant?" Bannon barked at the officer responsible for visuals.

"Um… negative, sir, we're the only one at the moment."

"Re-orient the telescopes. Have a Raptor jump over there _immediately_."

DRADIS was beginning to clean up as the battle fleet's powerful ECM ship _Silent Shade_ compensated and threw out counter-jamming. _Atlantis_ ejected half a dozen DRADIS buoys which cleared up the messy soup.

"My god…" Bannon whispered.

The image was unmistakable. The ship was strange, odd, and appeared almost organic. But it's design architecture, its presence … "Cylons."

"The goa'uld vessels, admiral… look!" Bannon pointed.

Admiral Nagala walked forward towards the display and squinted. The goa'uld lines were breaking. ha'taks and goa'uld capital ships were firing on _each other_. Two were exchanging fire with the command ship. Both exploded under a withering hail. The command ship _rammed_ a cheops, which exploded and took out a significant portion of the command ship's secondary structure and pylons.

"Ops, isolate the vessels with distress calls. Assign them as priority targets. Order our vessels to engage them. Bring in our Raptor wings and order our independent strike squadrons to converge on their battlestar groups. We will re-form and re-engage with force." Nagala's jaw clenched.

"Sir, this, it changes everything. The entire paradigm. We need to alert Caprica City _immediately_. The Cylons could be attacking the Colonies while we're engaged out here."

Nagala closed his eyes. _Yes, they could be_, he thought. Sixth Fleet was a major force, an expeditionary force, but never had so many battlestars, gunstars, strikestars, and everything else been so damned fraking far from the Colonies and unable to effectively return. "

"Sir!" One of the colonels was rushing towards him, "_Galactica_ is coming under massive attack!"

* * *

The battlestar _Galactica_ had been in service since near the start of the Cylon War. It was the most heavily decorated ship in the Fleet with one of the most noteworthy battle records, with only _Pegasus_ and the name's heritage coming remotely close.

_Galactica_ was a behemoth of a warship. Designed quickly to wither the kinetic and missile barrages of Cylon baseships and their swarms of Raiders, she was outfitted with a fourteen massive kinetic canons on her dorsal and ventral aspects and big guns that could make _Atlantia_ blush. She was a heavy hitter. Her missile armament was puny in comparison to the newer battlestars but no battlestar short of a _Mercury_ could put as many rounds downrange in a minute as the Grand Old Lady of the Fleet.

With coordination gone from the command ship the goa'uld were breaking off and attacking in formations. Two cheops had managed to move to within firing range of _Galactica_ during the massive spike in DRADIS interference and cover the five al'kesh and many dozens of gliders that had been hiding in her shadow. At near point blank range the al'kesh had broken off with the gliders and swarmed the _Galactica_.

The first cheops, already mortally wounded, fell to a full and complete alpha strike from the ventral guns of galactic and her forward under mounts. A flurry of missiles from _Atlantia_ to cover her fellow battlestar added to the damage.

The cheops lingered in space almost frozen and then exploded. But the second raked her with a full salvo of plasma fire and deftly maneuvered from the returning kinetic strikes, with only a few glancing blows sparking on her shields.

The cheops fell right under _Galactica_, where _Atlantis_ and _Cerberus_ and _Mercury_ would have difficulty firing back on her.

Armor exploded from her hull with blinding fury. Chucks of plating were burned and melted. Two turrets exploded and a third was melted in place by the intense heat of the plasma rounds impacting around it.

The al'kesh began their bombing run and poured more plasma bombs into an already heavily damaged _Galactica_. _Atlantia _moved to cover, as did _Cerberus_, but the al'kesh were coming in too close. Raptors and Vipers were furiously engaging the al'kesh, but a wave of incoming gliders had forced them to split their forces.

Two Vipers were blasted apart by one al'kesh, whose pilot could only be described as 'ace'. Heavy plasma from its belly's canon tore apart the name plate on the Grand Old Lady's port pod. Fires erupted near the outer hull which was only quelled by emergency decompression.

With the al'kesh and gliders attacking like locusts and the cheops firing madly into _Galactica_ the mighty battlestar was furiously trying to defend herself. She was rotating on her axis to exposed untouched armor to the mighty balls of plasma that were melting her hull and to keep any one section from receiving critical battle damage.

The thick armor, void spaces, and sheer mass of the _Columbia_-II was what kept her from dying a quick death.

A lucky hit from an anti-fighter missile on an unshielded al'kesh sent the bomber straight into a gunners sights, which massacred the bomber with two well-placed heavy canon shot.

The four remaining al'kesh conducted high speed attack runs on _Galactica_. Heavy armor plating designed to shrug off Cylon nukes and armor penetrators proved insufficient for the shaped directed plasma bombs that punched through her armor like a knife.

Heavy explosions ensured where the rounds connected along the alligator head and the top side armor. _Galactica_ attempted to shift her main guns to engage but the al'kesh were already moving along her topside, keeping well out of the guns firing trajectories, and dropping more plasma bombs in any perceived weakness they could find.

These pilots were _good_. Vipers tailed them and fired what they could, but the gunners intercepted missiles and gliders forced the Vipers off. Even the Raptors weren't getting clean shots. Their anti-fighter canons were near useless against the heavily shielded bombers.

Even a young hotshot Viper rook straight from the training grounds, who thought she was the best pilot to grace the decks of _Galactica_ couldn't get clean hits and her missiles were proving ineffective against the superior shielding of these al'kesh bombers.

The hotshot pilot did manage to add one more glider kill to her count by coming _through_ the fireball caused by the plasma explosion and taking out the pilot almost point blank with a hail of armor piercing explosive rounds. The glider almost hit her, but this pilot bucked her Viper up at the absolute last moment, and the glider spun away, to disappear into the depth of deep space.

The al'kesh moved past the ships giant thrusters and then looped back around to attack her bottom side. Secondary guns frantically attempted to tag them but none of the lighter rounds were capable of penetrating the shield system. The al'kesh then looped back over the topside and continued dropping plasma bombs in the exact armor sections where they had bombed in their previous runs, worsening the damage to the _Galactica_.

A half squadron of vipers managed to break through the gliders and pursued them firing their cannons for all they were worth but they dared not fire any missiles at this range for fear of hitting _Galactica_. With mere meters to the hull, high speed bombing runs was a role the al'kesh excelled at. Though not specifically designed for ship to ship combat, al'kesh commanders learned that if they were to get in close and use their speed to their advantage they stood a better chance of simply surviving against an enemy ha'taks. But against a battlestar the tactic was proving incredibly effective as the mammoth ship was unable to get a clean hit in turn.

The _Galactica_ was in flames. Multiple breaches in her armor spewed fire, atmosphere and bodies into the void as the al'kesh kept up the pressure. But the old girl kept fighting defiantly as if determined she would never let them take _her_ down.

The gunstars _Arrow of Apollo _and _Diamede's Fury _closed the distance to support their wounded battlestar.

As the four al'kesh swung around for another pass well-timed precision shots from the primary and secondary guns of the gunstars blasted two of the al'kesh. One came perilously close to slamming into the _Galactica_ but merely skimmed her hull and tore armor away before spiraling into space and exploded from anti-ship missile hits.

It was on the fifth pass that more of _Galactica's _Vipers were able to punch through the gliders keeping them pinned in place and add their support to their mother ship. Six Vipers fired volleys of missiles at the al'kesh headless of the danger of hitting the _Galactica_. Their shots proved on the money and destroyed done of the al'kesh and significantly damage the last.

Dying from shrapnel wounds and leaking atmosphere from a breach in the hull the Jaffa pilot dove for the Battlestar intent on ramming her. The Vipers gave chase and cotinued pouring rounds into the al'kesh which tore out large chunks of armor but the Jaffa doggedly held course and as her belly gun was blasted off, as a missile exploded on her rear engine and exploded and sent her wobbling, the pilot still managed to keep her course true!

The al'kesh slammed into the starboard flight pod of _Galactica_.

A titanic explosion erupted from the Starboard flight pod, rocking the entire ship and setting heavy fires and destroying equipment and killing over 200 souls who were unlucky enough to be there when the al'kesh struck.

A series of secondary explosions sent fire blowing into space from the Viper tubes and something exploded on the far end of the pod and two Raptors prepped with missile and awaiting clearance to depart on the pod exploded.

More explosions ripped into the forward arm holding the flight pod to _Galactica_. Armor was peeled outwards as internal explosions ripped through bulkheads and exposed interior compartments to space. Fire suppression systems were futile in their efforts to contain the explosions as the plasma bombs from the al'kesh and the ordnance in the magazines added to the carnage. Hundreds of souls had died instantly, and hundreds more were trapped in compartments with melted hatches and burning insides.

_Galactica_'s engines sputtered and flamed out. Her energizers disengaged. Even her FTL core stopped spinning. Lights on _Galactica_ flickered. A frantic call went out to clear her airspace…

The explosions stopped.

But momentum kept her on a slow starboard spin. Gases erupted from her capital-grade reaction control thrusters, but they did little. Raptors and support shuttles began to be disgorged from the surrounding battlestars to aide their stricken comrade.

The Fleet breathed a sigh of release as the compartments and emergency bulkheads to the tyllium storage tanks held, and the main magazines were saved by mere dozens of meters. The explosions diminished. Only fires raged, but they were controllable, they could save the Grand Old Lady. They would save her.

As if cursed in this battle, _Galactica_ would face one final assault.

A ha'tak unexpectedly exited hyperspace. She came so close to _Galactica_ that the secondary structure was sheared as it physically slid across _Galactica_'s top and tore out all her massive gun turrets.

The Colonial's Phoenix Seal, was ripped in two at the ha'tak slide across her topside.

More compartments were opened to space. More bodies were flung into the void.

The ha'tak fell under withering fire from the Fleet, but her shields were unlike any encountered. And she continued at a breathtaking speed towards Delmak herself…

* * *

"Wake up."

"WAKE UP!"

Samantha Carter gagged and sucked in a breath. Her shoulder hurt like hell, she was sure her wrist was broken when pain jabbed up her arm, her head was spinning, and she saw two, maybe three O'Neill's staring right back at her. She wasn't sure but he looked pretty beat up. She managed a weak smile. "There you are… thought I- we'd lost you…" She was blinking fast.

Carter figured she probably had a concussion, too. She'd hit the floor pretty hard.

He was looking her over. He felt her side for bruises, and checked her quick for any serious wounds. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay… thank you, sir." She felt him cradle an arm under her. He helped her to sit up. "What happened to you?" Her eyes stopped on the bruises and cuts on his face. She could see the pain he was valiantly holding back. His eyes betrayed him. _They always do_, she thought.

"I thought I lost you there for a second. Can you make me a promise?" He smirked.

She looked at him. And she saw something in his eyes she hadn't seen, or was maybe too afraid to see. "Yes."

There was a pause, but he smirked. "Don't get abducted by crazy robots again, please?"

Carter gave him a look. Then she looked down at Leoben. His lifeless blue eyes were staring back at her. The way he'd fallen… it was eerie. "Crazy robots?"

O'Neill helped her to her feet. He nodded and pointed at Leoben with his gun. "He was a Cylon. If I had to guess an infiltrator of some sort that Kali caught before she attacked Vorash. They've…. They've been attacking worlds, abducting the inhabitants."

"Kali?" She was still feeling light-headed. Everything was coming back pretty quick. _Replicators… Vorash… the sun exploding… an alternate galaxy… shit_…_ time travel… shit…_ Carter rubbed her temples. "What now?"

"Kali told me how to stop the ship. Well, I guess more like destroy the ship. We're heading-"

"To Delmak," Sam interrupted. She stood up. After looking at Leoben's body, and seeing the glistening red blood pooling around him, she grabbed her weapons. Another shake of the head and she felt back in the game, minus an inability to grab anything with any sort of a good grip with her right hand. "We're heading back to Delmak and we can crash the ship right into his palace. We'll kill Sokar and cripple his empire. We were coming to destroy the control crystal when he…" she gulped and closed her eyes as she looked away.

It hurt.

"Right." O'Neill nodded. "We have to-"

There was more clinking and clattering. Replicators were rapidly approaching.

"_Sam, are you there? We're about to drop out of hyperspace and we need those crystals gone. Bay's open. You good to go? What's going on?"_

Carter felt the pain in her body recede as she heard her father's voice. He was safe on the tel'tak. "Give me a minute, dad."

"Give _us_ a minute," Jack shouted towards her radio.

"_Was that Jack?"_

"Yeah dad, he's here. Give us a few minutes and we'll be there."

Her dad acknowledged. Carter licked her lips, threw the pain and hurt into the back of her mind and darted her eyes around the room. She found what she was looking for. The control console was there and ready for them, and they moved over. Carter began tapping in commands and connected her PDA up to a data port.

Jack yanked at the tray. "It's locked."

"The ship's decelerating…" they felt the wave of energies, a feeling of dizziness and vertigo as the ship exited hyperspace. "We're still moving fast… we get this we can smash it into the planet." She tapped on the PDA. "Sir, there's a battle going on out there." They were almost knocked off their feet. They heard explosions. "Yeah, we're being attacked."

"Just get it open, Carter."

She saw Jack lean over and grab at his midsection. Carter wanted to stop, wanted to help him, but… _the replicators can't get off this ship_, she swore. "SIR!"

Replicators began jumping out from vents, and from a melted hole in the bulkhead. They could see more streaming towards them from engineering. A dozen, then two dozen were in the compartment.

The replicators stopped.

Jack's jaw dropped. The bugs had surrounded Leoben's body. They weren't moving forward, just fluttering their stubby little wings and squawking in their chirps and crickets at them. Then one began to do _something_. "What… the… fuck…" one replicator, one of the larger ones that looked like a beetle, crawled onto Leoben's back. It seemed to pause and look at the two and with a chirp, seemed to almost be taunting them. The other replicators chirped and fluttered their wings.

The replicator, the beetle on Leoben's back pressed itself tight against the cylon, almost hugging him with its blocky legs. Suddenly those legs began to change. The blocks rearranged themselves. Three legs split and became six thin and long ones. Its snout grew as blocks moved from its wings and what could only be described as a quadruple pincer formed.

It reared up and then smashed those pincers into Leoben's neck and skull. Its legs began to burrow into the cylon's body and blood seeped out. Leoben began to convulse, his eyes rolled back into his head. His fingers clenched and unclenched rapidly.

The crystal tray door clicked. Jack slowly opened it. The replicators weren't moving, and he was trying not to make any sudden movement.

"Let's get out of here." Jack said as he back peddled.

"That is not happening," Carter whispered as they reached the hatch and took aim at the crystals. O'Neill could hear her voice crack, something he'd never heard. This frightened her. "Tell me that isn't happening."

"Oh, it's happening, Carter." Leoben's arms moved under him, and he began to stand. His movements were jerky. "Three… two… one…" He took aim and fired.

Crystals shattered. A loud _pop_ was heard, followed by alarms and klaxons. The computer's voice began to earnestly recite some sort of- Jack assumed- warning. Lights began to flicker.

A replicator lunged at him from the bulkhead. He ducked as acid spray flew by his head and he opened fire. Bullets smashed into the replicators and tore them apart. He hit three with his burst and blocks lost their cohesion and the replicators fell to pieces from the force of the kinetic energy.

Carter stepped back and fired as a bug fluttered its wings and was about to pounce. She blasted it with his rifle as it was in mid-flight. Its blocks rained down on the deck and scattered.

"Sir!"

"I know!" He slapped the door controls as he exited. A replicator smashed up onto the door. He shot the control panel out and knew it'd hold them for only a few seconds until the acid ate through the exotic metals.

They started running down the corridors as fast as they could. Carter was holding onto her rifle with one hand and cradling it with the other. Any attempt to reload and change magazines was met with excruciating pain, but she had to force her way through it. She and O'Neill tore into replicators as they came from every space possible.

She felt a tingle, something behind her, and she turned and fired as a large replicator beetle was about to pounce. It shattered into hundreds, thousands of blocks. A few reformed into smaller replicators and she fired again as she kept moving back.

Down the corridor something exploded. Then again and again and she was knocked off her feet. A fireball approached but blast doors smashed shut. "Get up!" O'Neill grabbed her.

Carter keyed up her mic. "Dad, we're almost to the rings. Be ready!" Her dad acknowledged.

She stopped and took a covering position and kneeled as O'Neill tapped in the commands to open the hatch to the ring control room. On the first try the panel beeped. He cursed. He hit the symbols again and it beeped, denying him again. Frustrated, she heard him smash his hand into the panel.

"We're in."

The two soldiers rushed in and fired as replicators rushed into the room. Their fire was wild as more and more replicators swarmed into the room they could spray almost anywhere and hit one of the bugs. The rings activated. Replicators tried to squeeze their way in. Carter and O'Neill both felt a stinging sensation as their bodies were dematerialized and thrown into a beam of energy, transported through ship and metal and replicators, and rematerialized within the bay of the tel'tak.

Teal'c was there waiting for them. "Colonel O'Neill. Major Carter." He inclined his head.

"Hey big guy. Good to see ya again." O'Neill limped forward, winced, but smacked his friend on the back of his arm. He was up in the cockpit with the others and Carter. "We gotta get going."

"I'm working on it!" Jacob yelled before Teal'c could answer.

Sam was standing behind her dad when her heart stopped and time seemed to halt. She could see from the cockpit into the bays control room, through the window. Leoben was there and he was watching her. But as the tel'tak swung about she lost sight of him. "Dad, the-!"

"I see it!"

The bay doors were rapidly closing. Jacob accelerated the tel'tak as fast as he dared to within the confines of the hanger bay and they just barely escaped. "Crap!" He jerked at the controls and everyone in the cockpit was knocked off their feet. The tel'tak pulled up and away from the massive Colonial battlestar _Galactica_.

Behind them, part of the ha'tak slammed into _Galactica_, and sheared off a portion of its flight pod. It continued on towards the planet and Jacob cloaked the tel'tak. Everyone watched in silence as the massive warship moved through the battle, taking fire from human and goa'uld warships. Within seconds it smashed into the planet. Clouds parted. A massive orange-yellow fireball seemed to want to reach into space as the ship detonated. A shockwave began to envelop the continent.

"The ha'tak… it hit the palace. Sokar's dead," Jacob said quietly.

The lights of the massive cities of Delmak began to wink out as the shockwave spread and washed over them.

As the battle raged outside it was O'Neill who spoke next. He put a hand on Jacob's shoulder. "Take us home." The tok'ra merely nodded and as O'Neill turned back to go to the cargo hold he saw Carter sitting on the deck, propped up against the escape pods and her eyes were closed and she was asleep. He smiled and everything seemed like it'd be okay. It'd be okay.

* * *

Premie struggled out of the Raptor's wreckage. "Gods damnit," he cursed, "Gods fraking damnit." He shoved off from the Raptors hull, stumbled, and then fell to the ground. His flight suit was ripped and his left hand burned. He touched it with his good hand but cursed again from the pain. "Bulldog? Where are you man? Answer me!" His vision was hazy.

He pulled himself back into the Raptor. He didn't remember even getting _out_ of it. But there was Bulldog, in the ECO chair. Premie slowly moved forward, his heart thumping hard in his chest. He shook his friend by the shoulder.

Nothing.

He shook him again.

Nothing.

He closed his eyes and collapsed to his knees. He pulled off his helmet and shook Bulldog again. He pulled at the ECO, at his friend. He checked his pulse but the blood, there was a lot of blood. It was everywhere. It was on Bulldog's chest, on his legs. It was on the floor.

Premie managed to claw his way around the compartment so he could see his ECO's face. "I'm so sorry…" There was a hole in the side of his neck. It was big. "Bulldog…" he closed his eyes and his forehead fell onto Bulldog's lap. He started to cry.

Fire erupted from the forward section. Something small exploded and sent sparks showering Premie's back. He grabbed Bulldog's dog tags.

He was about to jump from the Raptor when another explosion knocked him forward. He hit the ground hard and the air was knocked from him. He rolled onto his back and moaned as he clutched his stomach, almost balling up.

The pilot cursed.

He crawled forward away from the Raptor. His rifle, awkwardly over his shoulder, fell into the ground and he collapsed after it. He could feel the heat from the burning Raptor and someone kept screaming at him to 'move!' as fast as he could before the Raptor's main fuel pods and ordnance exploded.

The pilot looked back. He could see part of Bulldog's body burning up. He swore he could smell it above the sickening odor of burning plastics, rubber, and chemicals.

_There's ordinance on the Raptor…_ he thought.

"Gods." Premie tried. He got to his knees but collapsed again. "Please."

He was on all fours but couldn't move. His body was frozen.

Something fell from his flight suit, from a pocket. He saw what it was and his eyes teared. Like many of the pilots he was superstitious, traditional, and did things like they'd always been done. Everyone, from Raptor bus drivers to Viper jocks all carried a picture of their loved one. A girlfriend, a boyfriend, children and spouse, someone, anything, even their damned dog- and Premie knew one… odd pilot who carried pictures of their half dozen cats.

But there was the picture. The girl he'd met not long ago, who'd fought beside him. They'd helped save each other. Jessica's picture was there, smiling at him. It wasn't a special picture. It was just her, jogging across the street to jump into his car. It was a picture he'd shot with his phone, on a whim. One she didn't even really like. She'd told him to come back. Things would be different.

He fell to an elbow. His burned and blistered hand grabbed the picture. He held on tight. Premie began pushing himself up. He got to his knees. He put one foot under. Slowly and deliberately he moved the second. His knee was killing him. He could feel blood running down his side. He had to get up.

Premie moved slowly. He found his emergency transmitter and activated it. It began to flash red, two flashes, a pause, and then three flashes.

He couldn't think of anything other than trying to survive. And Jessica. He could see her over there, frantically waving him over. Someplace. He squinted.

_Jaffa_… a lot of jaffa and they looked pissed.

Premie used the rifle to prop himself up. He'd crash landed near the edge of a field, and there were walls for cover. The jaffa were advancing through a pasture.

_Oh, frak me!_ They saw him and opened fire and he ran towards the wall as fast as his he could, injuries be damned. He hit the wall hard and turned, with his back pressed against it. Bricks and mortar exploded around him. He had a hole and leaned back, took a quick shot, and saw one of the unarmored jaffa go down and struggle. A second jaffa- one who looked like the one he'd shot- stopped and tried to pull the downed one to safety.

The other jaffa were coming in fast, and using covering fire as they advanced to and from what little cover there was. Premie moved to another section of the wall, stood up and tried to aim but a coughing fit from the smoke inhalation on the Raptor and mortar dust caused him to stand down and hold fire.

The jaffa were close enough he could hear them yelling commands at each other. He poked his rifle over the wall and fired. He didn't know much of their language but he understood a little and they stopped advancing for a second.

He peeked through a hole and knew he was dead. Two jaffa were moving to flank him on the right and left and three were coming from the front. He gritted his teeth and-

_BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!_

The jaffa in front of him exploded into fine red mist. The ground was dug up and exploded all around them. He heard a screech and an explosion.

Canons! Rockets!

A Raptor buzzed overhead and passed low. It threw open its RCS thrusters and turned on a cubit and continued to fire over Premie's head at two surviving jaffa. Its canons tore the jaffa to pieces.

"_Raptor 4-5-2-Kilo, we're here to rescue ya_," came a voice over Premie's emergency wireless.

"Thank the gods, 452, thank the gods. Where you from?"

"_Galactica_ _sent us, we're_-"

The transmission cut. The Raptor was hovering a hundred plus meters above. Premie looked up. Then a blinding light forced him to reflexively curl downwards. He screamed "_GODS!_" and he felt heat. He looked back up. Far in the distance a massive fireball was rising over the horizon.

Premie was thrown back and the Raptor knocked from the sky as the shockwave hit.


	24. Chapter 24

Commander Adama readied himself as the raptor slowed its acceleration and kicked on its reaction control thrusters bucked its nose slightly starboard. He stood up and saw the streams of gas blow out form the nose of the raptor, pushing it down. And there, through the raptor's canopy, he saw _Galactica_.

And she was _broken_.

"Gods damn," he whispered, so low no one could hear. But if the pilots had turned and looked him in the eye they'd have seen his anguish as his eyes ran slowly and meticulously across the broken body of the stories battlestar. _Galactica_.

Her topside guns were ripped to pieces. Large gashes and tears were everywhere on her hull. What could only be described as a canyon on her topside ran from stem to amidships. Her flight pod was still smoldering nearly half a day after the battle. The letters 'a', 'ct' and the last 'a' on her intact pod were missing. _Galactica_'s bottom side port engine was dark and badly damaged.

_We'll get you home yet,_ he promised her. _We owe you that much, old girl_. They owed her much more.

"We're coming in, sir," the pilot reported. Adama heard him mutter a curse under his breath at the site.

The raptor approached and pulled around. As the nimble little transport slowed he could see hundreds of men and women in space suits working on the hull. Utility shuttles were hard at work laying down emergency armor plating over critical sections of the hull. A section near the exchange matrices was still glowing orange from goa'uld plasma bombs.

He could tell the crew was exhausted. And as the raptor touched down with a slight jolt he saw a group from half a dozen different warships moving out with a smaller group from _Galactica_, a sled in tow, and transition through a portal to the outer hull of the pod.

While _Galactica_ was in ruins her bays were largely functional and the ship's crew focused on repairs. Adama hopped out of his raptor with only a short delay between the elevator and a crewman moving the raptor to an unloading zone. His pilots opened the hatch and he could hear the clangs, the noises of a flight deck and the controlled chaos as many hundreds of men and women worked in unison.

"Frak," the pilot said, looking at the damage wrought within the bay. "They'll need these parts." _Valkyrie_ had sent over precious computer parts; CPUs, new hard drives, and equipment to try and get _Galactica_'s drive operational.

Adama stepped out and shielded his eyes. Large emergency lights were shining up towards the upper rack of vipers, which were mangled and bent. A viper had been violently shaken from its battle locks and was nose first into the deck, its ass pointing straight at the overhead. Crews were trying to either secure it against the bulkhead or move it.

He could see a dozen bays down that four vipers and a raptor were basically all smashed into a viper storage bay by the bay's dozers. They'd be moved to an elevator where a zero-gee dozer would push them out the pod before they jumped.

Adama let out a small sigh. He walked towards the end of the winglet and stopped. A haggard looking young man in a mangled uniform and Marine escort were there to greet him. He jumped down.

"Captain Aaron Kelly, sir," the dirtied and bloodied man said with a precise and sharp salute. His uniform top was off and he wore only the gray and tan tank tops. The gray tank was torn on the side.

Adama returned the crisp salute. "Captain."

"Sir," Kelly nodded, "it's good to have you aboard. We all know your history with the old girl." Kelly took keys from his pockets. "We're all glad to have you commanding _Galactica_ until we can get home." He held the keys out. "The nuke keys, sir, for the ship's CO."

"Thank you, captain." He took the keys and placed them around his neck. He walked forward and motioned for Kelly to follow. "Give me a SITREP."

Kelly took out a comp sheet and unfolded it. He handed it over. "We lost nearly fifteen hundred and with another thousand wounded to various degrees we're short on manpower. Most of those have been taken over to the medstars. We're hurtin'. Most of our engineers were killed when a plasma bomb hit the engine room…" Kelly swallowed. "_Galactica _has most of her systems shot, few guns are working, networks are down, and life support isn't operational in a quarter of the ship. Lost a lot of good people…" he said quietly. He stopped.

Commander Adama put a hand on the captain's shoulder. "The men and women here fought bravely, captain." Kelly nodded. "Are you the-"

"I'm the senior sur-… the current senior CIC officer, sir. Major Spenser is currently the senior-most pilot on _Galactica_ and heading DC." Adama could see a glassy look in his eyes. Then Kelly snapped back. "Chief!"

Adama turned. The man Kelly had yelled at had his back to him. A group of young knuckle draggers, about a dozen of them in orange jumpsuits with tired and exhausted expressions were listening to him with focus. The chief held up a finger to tell Kelly to give him one. He started pointing. The commander nodded to himself. The chief was getting things done.

The chief turned and did a double take. Adama could see a small crack of a grin under the heavy five o'clock shadow on the man. "Commander Adama?" He walked up. "Sir." He saluted.

"It's good to see you again, chief," the commander said, extending a hand. The chief grasped it hard and left some grimy residue. Adama wiped it off inside a trouser pocket.

Kelly looked surprised. "You know each other?"

"Galen Tyrol here," Adama said, half-turning towards Kelly, "when he was a petty officer and I was still flying vipers, was my viper mechanic on _Atlantia_. He kept my Mark IV running like it was fresh off the lines. We were both a lot younger then."

"Yes, sir." Tyrol replied. He was smiling. But it quickly faded to a grim and dim expression. "She's seen better days, hasn't she?"

Adama looked around and slowly nodded. "That she has." His voice was low and gravely. "We'll get her back to the Colonies yet. There's too much history for us to…" he trailed off. He didn't want to say it. _I won't_, he thought.

They had a deadline. If they couldn't get the FTLs operational two nukes would be detonated within her: one in the engineering compartment at the FTL core and another in CIC. There was no way to get her back to the Colonies without FTLs, and there was no way in hell Nagala was prepared to just leave her for the goa'uld to pick apart. And with the wild card that'd been thrown down with the Cylons they needed to make it back to Eluuria and the Colonies ASA-fraking-P.

Damage control was 'get it working now; we'll get it all better later'.

A deck hand ran up to the chief and handed him a tablet. He scrolled through it quickly and scowled. "Gods, frak it." He hit his free backhand on the tablet. Then he suddenly remembered who was in front of him. "Oh, um, sorry, commander."

"What's wrong?"

"We're losing systems all over the ship. They're working fine one moment and then the next, gone." He scrolled through. "You know what… these are all focused on a node… huh… odd, it shouldn't be… but… I've got a raptor filled to the brim at the auxiliary landing bay that's gonna take hours to offload unless we get a move on…"

Adama chuckled. He'd seen Petty Officer Tyrol space out when presented with a problem. The man was an engineering genius, easily on par with some of the Fleet Academy educated, doctorate-level engineers being assigned to some of the more prestigious battlestars. Adama had no doubt the chief could get a teaching position at the Academy or viper maintenance school if he wanted it. But… "I'll leave you to it, chief. Get this old girl fixed so we can get her back to the Colonies, give her a proper homecoming."

Chief Tyrol looked up. His eyes were sharp, focused, and there was determination behind them. Adama saw the devotion in his face, the way he'd straightened up. "Aye, aye sir. We'll get this old girl home."

The commander nodded and started walking towards the ladders for the upper decks of the bay. "Captain, I'll head to CIC. We have twelve hours, fifteen at the absolute most, to get this ship running and her FTLs repaired." He stepped up the first rung, leading the captain. He stopped and looked back. "We'll get it done."

The captain looked up. Adama could see he was exhausted but underneath there was that grim determination to see this mighty old lady back to her berthing above Caprica. "Damn right, sir."

* * *

Ensign Kara Thrace cursed as the wrench slipped and jammed her hand. "Fraking gods damnit!" She shook her injured hand and sucked on the cut. "Fraking bullshit." She kicked the wrench and it went flying into the side of the viper bay. "This isn't my fraking job to do." She threw her hands on her hips and turned around, starting to walk off.

"_Ensign_. Where are you going?"

"To get into a suit, Catman. I'm a viper pilot. Not a gods' damned knuckle dragger." She rolled her eyes. "The damn snakes could hit us, and they need pilots out there."

Lt. George Birch, dirtied and grimey like everyone else on _Galactica_ stood up and shoved his own tools into the pockets of his filth-covered utility uniform. He rubbed sweat and grit off his brow and its stained his green utility sleeve. "Listen, _ensign_, you're here to do a job. And Dipper wants us fixing these vipers so the _knuckle draggers_ can fix the gods damned ship." He leaned in closer to her. "Understand?"

There was a snort. "I don't think princess wants to get her hands all dirty."

Thrace's eyes went wide. She was livid. She barreled passed Catman. "What the frak did you say?"

The other woman stopped what she was doing.

"Showboat, don't get involved in this," Catman urged, holding up his hand. He kept his eyes on Thrace. The situation was spiraling out of control, and fast.

"I said you're just a little nugget pilot who thinks she hot shit after one battle, that's she better than everyone else. I saw your stunt. You're in it for yourself. You're a danger, Thrace. You're going to get people _killed_. You're gonna get my _friends_ killed." She walked forward a step. "And I won't let you."

Thrace sneered at Lt. Maria Case. She pointed and Catman put a hand on her chest to hold her back. "Real tough," Kara responded in a mocking tone. "Remind me, how many more kills did I get than you? Your viper gets a little ding and you bugged out back to _Galactica _you coward-"

"Hey!" Catman yelled as Showboat roared a "Frak you!"

And it was on. Showboat and Thrace lunged at each other. Catman was caught in the middle as the two hot-headed pilots came into contact with a force of personalities that could tank battlestars and end civilizations. Kara rammed her shoulder into Showboat as she ducked a punched, and both pilots hit the deck.

Catman was on the deck after being pushed aside and stumbling on gear.

Showboat threw up an elbow which hit Thrace in the face and knocked her off. Someone cursed and they both lunged again.

Showboat got in a second punch which slid off Kara's chest as she came in at an angle. Kara gut punched Showboat which cause her to almost bend in two before a quick knee to Kara's ass forced her forward and almost face planted her into the deck. Showboat gave another punch to Kara's side.

Then hands were wrapping around the both of them. Pairs of hands were pulling Kara up and off Showboat while others were yanking her back and away. Showboat was kicking while Kara was trying to punch. Both were out of reach of the other and screaming furious.

But the futility of trying to hit each other didn't dawn on them at first. They both tried a few more kicks and punches.

Major Jack 'Dipper' Spenser had almost appeared from nowhere in the few seconds the fight had been going on. He was one of the pilots gripping Starbuck, who struggled against kept struggling against his grip but he was too strong for her and held her back. She lunged again and he shoved her against the bulkhead. The wind got knocked out of her.

"You two fraking done!" He screamed with his head on a swivel and his eyes searing each one with judgment and disappointment. Half the deck crews were staring at the two pilots. He had a finger in Thrace's face. "You're done!"

Kara barred her teeth. "She-"

"I don't give a frak!" He leaned forward. "Shut up." Dipper pointed to Showboat and then pointed firmly at the deck next to Thrace. Showboat shoved her shoulder out of Catman's grip and pushed back hair that had been knocked free from the fight. She stood away from Thrace but Spenser had them close enough to make her and Thrace uncomfortable. "I have two of _my pilots fighting_ when many of our friends are dead?" His whisper was filled with anger. "Are you two out of your fraking minds? The unprofessional…"

"Sir-"

"Stuff it." He held up his finger at Showboat. "You. I'll talk to later. Go to med bay three and get cleaned up. Then report back here for DC. You're going to med bay five, Thrace."

Showboat and Thrace exchanged sneers and hated looks.

"Serves her right," Thrace commented with a smile. She saw Dipper look at her, with those cold and steely eyes and felt small. She tried to not do it, but she swallowed. Dipper leaned in closer to her. Catman was there. Others were there, too. She knew they'd hear the chewing out she got.

"I know you think you're the best thing to happen to this ship, Thrace. Your scores are off the charts and you think you're the best viper pilot here. _You're still a gods damned nugget,_ despite your kill count. You think that matters now? We're a _crew_, we work _together_, which means we do things we don't always like to do if we have to. To survive." He turned and then turned back. "And I saw the antics you pulled out there. You went for kills without your wingman, you ran dangerously low on ammo and fuel to get them.

"You're reckless. You think you're indestructible, that you could… run off on your own, take on a fraking star in your viper." He snorted.

Kara tapped her chest. "I got more kills than anyone on this boat. I should be out _there_ just in case they come." And as if remember to add it in, she finished. "Sir."

Dipper was shaking his head. "You are trouble, ensign. How about that… you know what, Thrace? Since you're such hot shit and think you're indestructible, why don't we call you Starbuck… maybe you'll get some gods damned humility and learn you can't be a one woman squadron…" Dipper hummed a thought to himself. "Problem with that, _Starbuck_, is that, is that… you're gonna get someone killed before you learn that… and I pray to the gods it isn't going to be me."

* * *

"Dude, you know this is fraking bullshit." The lights flickered and something rattled at the end of the corridor. Pairs of crewmen were prodding along through the labyrinth of corridors in this behemoth battlestar.

"Prosna, cut your bitching."

"_Prosna, cut your bitching_," Crewman Mike Prosna said back in an annoying and mocking tone. "Prosna, cut _your_ bitching." Socinus punched him in the arm. "That hurt, man. The frak?"

"Yeah well, it's gonna hurt a lot worse if the chief catches us jerking around with our cocks out. Hey, did you hear that Commander Adama came aboard?" He turned a corner and stopped at a hatch. Socinus put down his toolbox and grasped the handle with both hands and gave it a hard twist. It didn't budge.

"Oh, weak man," Prosna mocked as he gently pushed Socinus back with a hand on his chest. "Yeah, he's gonna replace Shelly for the trip back to the Colonies." He pretended to spit on his hands and rubbed them together.

"It's _Commander Jordan_, Dave."

Prosna shook his head and looked back over his shoulder. "She's dead. Why would she care? She's dead. Jim's dead. Lucy… George, John, Rose… do I have to go fraking on and on? Why do they care anymore? They're dead. They were my _friends_." He still had his hands on the wheel lock. "But they're dead."

"I know… just…" Socinus motioned at the hatch. Prosna sighed and turned it. He tried.

"You know," Prosna said thoughtfully, "I'm done with this."

"What do you mean?" Socinus asked as he tried the hatch again.

"I'm done. I'm leaving. When we get back to the anchorage, I'm leaving. I don't care if they say I'm A.W.A, I'm outta here."

"Dude… they'll find you. They don't let people just leave. Absent without authorization is a big time offense… especially during hostilities. They used to hang people for that."

Prosna huffed and shrugged his shoulder. He was leaning on the bulkhead without a care. "Whatever. There's dozens of worlds to hide on. Plenty of settlements that don't want anything to do with the central gov, plenty of places where I can live my life quietly. People don't like Caprica, man."

Socinus frowned towards the hatch and ignored his friend. He thought of a quick prayer to Ares for the patron war god to wash his friend's mind of such thoughts. He didn't want his friend to throw away his life for a decade in the brig. He smacked his lips and tried to distract Prosna with a friendly tap on the arm and a snap of his fingers.

"It's gotta be something on the other side. We've got O2 over there." He tapped the atmosphere gauges. Nothing out of the ordinary showed up. He pulled out a tablet. "That section should be good. We need to get there to fix the network lines or the chief will have our asses."

"Yes, I know, the chief told us that. I was there next to you." He tapped his foot, put this hands on his hips and sighed for a long, long few seconds. He did a backhand slap onto Socinus's chest to get his attention. "Come on, there's another hatch down the corridor."

Socinus sighed and picked up his tool box and handed Prosna an extra spool of data cabling. He didn't want to argue. Prosna had been pretty close with the rest of their deck gang and had grown close to them all during the last eighteen months. Socinus felt the loss, but had only known them since he'd transferred in over Eluuria a few weeks before they departed. They may not have been as close with him, but they were getting there. _And they were my friends, too_, he thought.

The two walked quietly. There were flickering lights and strange sounds. Socinus shivered and Prosna snickered at him and commented on his trepidation. 'It's battle damage' he'd said.

Still, for a nineteen and a half year old crewman who'd only been out of training schools for three months, it was a lot to take in. He'd never expected to be thrown into a battle with fraking freaky aliens with glow eyes and a god-complex so soon after enlisting and graduating boot.

"How do you think we did?" Socinus asked as he tried to break an uncomfortable silence and subconsciously distract himself from the creepiness of the abandoned corridors. "The battle…"

Prosna shrugged. "Dude, how should I know? Do you see admiral bars?" He flicked his collar. They turned the corridor and Prosna almost fell as his foot hit something. "Oh what the frak!" He regained his composure and sat on his heels. He grabbed the box. "Chief didn't say there were others working down here. Hey, David, raise 'em on wireless? It's…" he squinted, "Work detail Oh-Two-Gamma."

Socinus keyed up the wireless. _Bzzzzz_. "Nothing. Static."

The other man grabbed at it. "Gimmie." He went through the menu. He keyed it up. "Fraking interference screwing with this piece of junk… probably from some damage system putting out EM or something nearby." He shrugged and lazily handed it back. "I don't know." Socinus went to use one of the phones on the bulkhead. "Don't even try, they're all out on these decks," he told the younger crewmate. "These assholes shouldn't be leaving tools around." Prosna shook his head in judgment at the absentee DC work detail and the tools, tablet, and gear still left. A thermos of coffee was by the work area. "They'll get ripped a new one. Come on, let's go." He tapped Socinus in the chest and motioned for him to follow.

They walked quickly towards the next hatch. Again, Prosna tried to open it. "Frak me. Okay… one more…and if it doesn't work we'll go back up and radio in for some cutters…" he leaned back and looked left and right. "That way." He flicked his hand right and stepped off.

At the third hatch they met success. Socinus let out a sigh of complete relief. "Finally. I really didn't want to hike it back up." The trams were down; it'd take near half an hour to get back to DC for this section and back with cutting tools. "Now let's hope the interior hatches in the compartment aren't sealed."

They opened it up and stepped inside. It smelled musty and there was a hint of smoke. Their CO2 readers read at acceptable levels and none of the functioning alarms in this section were active. They were good to go. Socinus closed the hatch, hesitated about locking it, but decided to follow procedure and do it anyway.

Socinus was already out of the service portal at a T junction with hands on his hips. To starboard were ladders leading up a deck and to port was another corridor which rounded and obscured Socinus's vision after about twenty some-odd meters.

"Hey, Prosna, you hear that?" Socinus stopped walking. "Prosna?" He saw Prosna looking at something.

The crewman kneeled and took out a small wrench from his pocket. "What the frak is this… this can't be battle damage." He was sticking the wrench into something.

Socinus leaned forward and peered over Prosna's hunched form. "It's a hole."

"Yeah, but the bulkhead is _melted_, newbie. There's no heat source here to melt it and…" he got on his stomach and peered inside. "What the…" He got back up and had a surprised, confused look. "I don't know… take a look, it looks weird, like something's in there." He shrugged.

"What?" Socinus bent down and tried to look inside, but the tools he was still carrying were cumbersome. He stepped back and put them down. "You hear that?"

"Clattering… maybe something the other detail is working on? Hey! Anyone down here?" Prosna shouted towards the rounding corridor. He leaned a little bit to glance down, but couldn't see a thing other than a flickering light.

"Huh. Well, let me take a look. You _old people_ get bad vision."

"I'm like, two years older than you, man."

Socinus snickered. "Ah huh." He kneeled down and went to all fours then kicked out. Something clicked inside the ductwork. "You heard that, right?"

"Yup. Why don't you see what it is? You're smaller."

He eyed his crewmate suspiciously and smacked his lips together as he thought it over, still outside from the duct. "You want me to stick my head in there to see what's making the noise within the strange hole?"

"Fine, get back." Prosna tapped Socinus's heel with the tip of his boot. "I'll do it for you, pus. What, you think it's a cylon hiding out in the shaft? They're coming to get you."

"Shut up, man, I'll do it." He made a face at Prosna. He flailed his hands about mockingly. "Cylons. Give me a break…" he scooted forward. He held his hand back, palm up. "Light me, man." Prosna slapped a flashlight into his hand. "Thanks." There was more clanking and chirping. "Yeah… okay… huh…"

"What?" Prosna could see Socinus manipulating the light. "Hold the light steady so you can get a look at what's making that noise. If something's broke we gotta tell chief about-"

The clattering became a scurrying, and it got loud. _Fast._

"What the frakity frak is that fraking thing? Are they using RR drones down here…?"

"No, Socinus, there are not RR drones down here unless we got a shipment of them and weren't told. Plus the commander hates that drone shit."

"Well… how about… hold on… FRAK!" Socinus screamed.

"Socinus!" Prosna watched as Socinus's body began to violently convulse. He smelled something- flesh- burning. He yanked Socinus out. "Soc-" he almost threw up. "Oh my gods…" half his face was melted. He heard a chirp and a flutter and threw up his arms, and screamed, as something lunged at him.

* * *

Starbuck was fuming. She'd almost shoulder-checked a crewmate when she was entering med bay five. She didn't want to be here, and she _knew_ the major was wrong. She knew it. _Who the frak does he think he is? Fraking jealous old man… I saved more lives on this ship by taking out snake bellies. Frak them and this ship… Command will see my kills and transfer me to Pegasus. _Starbuck was almost shaking from the rage building inside of her and her eyes told anyone fraking stupid enough to _dare_ talk shit to her or piss her the frak off…

She clenched her jaw and took a seat on an empty bed. Her body ached as it started coming off the adrenaline dump. Her arms were folded and she started to wait. Impatient she sighed, only to earn the ire of a nurse from across the way.

Starbuck sucked in a breath and sighed loud enough to get the attention of one of the nurses just standing around doing _nothing _at a computer terminal. _Hurry the frak up_, she wanted to shout at her. She had duties to attend to. She needed to get back to her viper and go on CAP despite what Dipper wanted, her place was out there!

Her eyes were closed and she was picturing smashing that arrogant bitch of a pilot Showboat in the next war game drills. Frak, she just might challenge her to a h-band sim. Put a few thousand cubits down on a bet. _Maybe Showboat losing a month's pay would shut the bitch up_, Starbuck thought to herself. She snickered.

She kept her eyes closed and laid back on the bed. Her hands were rubbing her eyes. Her face hurt and her body. _Frak, she hits hard_…

She'd closed her eyes but her pilot's instincts caught up to her. She started to listen.

'_Gods doc… please…'_

'_We won't be able to save him, move to the next patient…'_

'_No, all the surgical bays in the whole gods' damned fleet are filled up… frak…'_

'_We ran out of his blood type... get the synthetics.'_

'_He'll lose the arm, Major Cottle, unless we-'_

Starbuck opened one eye and then another. She slowly sat up. Her head began to clear. To her left was a man, badly burned, to her right were two men sharing a bed, one with his arm in a cast and the other bandages over his eyes.

She looked left and right and then behind her. She was-

"Why are you on a bed?"

Starbuck snapped back to reality. "Wh… what?"

There was a nurse standing in front of her. She was short, maybe a head shorter than Starbuck and looked to be maybe from Gemenon or Sagittaron. Hey hair and eyes were a dark black. She had surgical gloves on. Deep pockets ringed her eyes from lack of sleep. Her eyes were focused in on Starbuck but not really. "What's wrong with you?"

Her tone caught Starbuck off guard.

"I was, um…" Starbuck began to _see_ what was around her. She began to _smell_ what was around her. She began to _hear_ what was around her. "I was in a fight-"

The nurse scoffed. "A _fight_? You need a bed for that?" The nurse was staring at her. Starbuck couldn't look her in the eyes and she'd lost her voice, umming and not finding the words. "Fine. Take it. I'll be with you soon. After I help them." She jerked her head towards two men who were burned, one with a foot up in a sling, and the other moaning from pain.

Starbuck gulped. She felt her eyes grow heavy. She felt small, wrong for being on the bed. She shot up and off. She almost knocked over a monitor. The nurse glared. Starbuck saw it all, smelled it all, and heard it all. The bay was filled with men and women who were _wounded_ and _injured_. She saw one man near the hatch with a look of horrific pain washing over his face, clenching his teeth, and refusing to scream as his injuries were treated.

Half a dozen beds on the far side of the bay had black body bags.

Doctor Cottle, the gruff and chain smoking old medical genius everyone on _Galactica_ loved to hate but always wanted to be seen by, dropped his clipboard and rushed over to a patient who started convulsing.

A man walked by, led by his who was holding his hand. Bandages were wrapped around his eyes. "Excuse us," the guide said as he slowed, grasped his friend's hand tighter, and put one hand on his shoulder to help him. Starbuck could see the burn marks from where the bandages didn't cover.

Starbuck looked at the deck. She pushed off from the bed but her legs wouldn't take her anywhere. She just kept looking at the men and women around her, their condition, what they'd been through. She-

There was a hand on her back. She turned.

"Oh gods…" she took a step and hugged the man, real tight, and wouldn't let him go.

* * *

Commander Adama didn't hesitate. He saw Kara from across the bay and could sense something was wrong. By the time his hand had touched her shoulder a sense of knowing had enveloped him. He knew what she was going through. He knew it, because he'd been the exact same.

So when she hugged him he hadn't hesitated. A senior commander in the Fleet, renowned for his tactical prowess and 'against the odds' reputation, hugged the young and inexperienced and _cocky_ pilot. "Kara."

"Commander." He could hear the surprise in her voice, like she just realized what she'd done, the breaches of etiquette and bearing. She stepped back. "I'm-"

He kept a hand on one shoulder and rubbed the side of her other arm caringly. "I know how it feels, Kara. It's overwhelming. We've been there." He could see a small tear in her eye.

"I was… I…"

"We make mistakes."

_He knows, somehow he knows…_ Starbuck thought. She could see it in his eyes. She could read it in his body language.

"I fraked up, sir."

"You _learned_, and that's-"

There was a scene of mass commotion. Commander Adama and Kara turned quickly. A man had almost fallen to the deck, only to be grabbed by a crewman and a nurse. Doctor Cottle was rushing over but the man, badly burned and shaking, pushed them all off.

He had a look of absolute fear, absolute horror on his face. "It killed Socinus!" He yelled. "Gods! Get off… we have to…"

"Son, you gotta calm the frak down!" Doc Cottle was over him and ordering nurses and crewmen to hold him and force him onto a bed. He tried to examine him and the crewman pushed and kicked back. "Hold him!" Cottle yelled. "Prosna, you have to calm down so we can help you, son!"

Adama and Kara were closer, watching. Adama felt something strange, a rumbling in his gut and a tingle in his spine. '_It killed Socinus'_… he swallowed. '_It killed Socinus_…' Adama could smell the burned flesh.

"Get off of me!" He kicked. His eyes were wide and filled with fear. His uniform was burned, almost melted onto his skin, which was red and black and already blistering. "Get… Commander! Oh gods!" He pushed away and fell to the floor. He was pulled up but with almost superhuman strength pushed the nurses away and stumbled forward. He fell into Adama's arms.

The commander grabbed him and held him up. "Son, you have to-"

"Commander… Adama…" Prosna breathed heavily with a near manic fire in his eyes. His grip on Adama's arms was bruising. "It killed Socinus… more of them… metal… bugs… they're all over the ship… they killed him… killed Socinus…" Prosna looked him in the eye. He shook the commander. "Metal bugs… eating the ship…" and there was a second, a flash of understanding in Adama's eyes, a look on his face. And Prosna knew the commander knew. In a heartbeat his body slumped and the life of this man Adama did not know, but had been so very brave faded… another casualty…

* * *

Commander Adama had arrived in CIC and Captain Kelly had immediately rushed over. He'd ignored Starbuck trailing him. Both the captain and Major Spenser looked ragged and haggard. "Commander," the captain said with a salute.

"What've we got?"

The four walked to the DC center, where a large video screen was projecting _Galactica_'s innards and a series of compartments had been isolated and highlighted with red.

"We've lost all contact with these six sections of the ship," Kelly began as the section lit up, "and the ten men and women assigned to work damage control in them. Chief Tyrol confirms that he sent the DC parties down there himself and roll call has been unable to locate them. Lt. Burrell-" a small profile picture appeared for Adama- "is the current senior Marine officer. He's taken his platoon down to the section for recon. He should be there momentarily."

Major Spenser stepped forward and ran his hand over the video screen. "If Cylons managed to board the ship, this section is only six frames forward of FTL control. If they gain control of secondary FTL they could jump the ship."

Starbuck shot the commander a look. "How the frak could Cylons get aboard the ship?"

Adama kept his eyes focused on the video screen. "This is classified: Fleet coms picked up Cylon transmissions coming from a number of goa'uld vessels." He saw the others exchange shocked looks. "The Cylons may have snuck aboard at some point during the battle. We have no idea how far their technology has progressed in the last forty years."

"Why?" Starbuck asked. "Why sneak aboard?"

Kelly snorted. "Do the Cylons need a reason? We still don't know why they attacked us fifty years ago. Only guesses, ensign."

Starbuck's jaw tensed.

"Sir, priority call from the flagship, it's Admiral Nagala." Lt. Gaeta said as he looked up.

The command crew of _Galactica_ and _Atlantia _stood by as they watched the Marines move forward into the sealed compartments…

* * *

Lt. Terry Burrell, fourth platoon leader, wiped the sweat from his brow and swallowed deep. He felt his stomach growl from nearly a day of 'I'm too busy' to eat. Or was it something else? He sniffed and smelled a faint scent of burning waffling lazily down the corridor. The temperature in the previous corridor and this were fluctuating wildly. Cold air was mixing with the hot and humid and creating a slick surface on the deck, and condensation on the bulkhead. To make it worse and set the scene lights were flickering and Burrell could hear faint clicking and scurrying noises.

He stopped and raised a fist. The platoon was at the T intersection. The paint on the bulkhead read 03-15-65, so he knew they were in the right spot. He signaled for Gunny Mathias, his senior surviving NCO, to take left while he and six others would take right. Mathias had seven other Marines with her. They should have had double that, and should have been going in at three or four ingress points, but the hatches had been sealed. These two on the starboard side of _Galactica_ were the only two into this deep and secluded section of the battlestar that could be cut through in a reasonable time.

The Marines moved up, split apart, and stopped at their respective hatches. Burrell had one of his corporals engage the cutting torch. The line was blindingly bright even as they looked away. A minute ticked by and then a second and a third. Interior hatches were designed to protect against decompression and weren't as heavy or thick as the exterior hatches. Cutting was easy.

"We're in, sir," the corporal said as he turned off the fuel source and the torch snapped off. The hatch was glowing a bright orange around the locking mechanism. Molten metal had dripped and cooled along the frame.

"Gunny, progress?" Burrell asked over the tac-coms.

"_We're in_."

Burrell nodded to himself and swallowed. His grip tightened on the battle rifle. He wanted to check his magazines and gear one last time but pushed back his nervousness. This would be his first actual engagement, his first real firefight. _Maybe_… _if Prosna wasn't delusional from gasses or something toxic_… Burrell thought, _but who the frak would seal up hatches? Frak me…_

He exhaled and then gave the signal to enter. The Marine keyed up his throat mike. "Burrell to Galactica Actual, we're heading in_."_ He received a confirmation and a 'good luck'. _Frak_…

The hatch was pushed back quickly. No point in being quiet. The torch would've alerted anyone who wasn't deaf.

Burrell was in quick. Everything seemed to be functioning well. He'd been told the lights and atmospheric scrubbers in this section were acting all screwy after the battle but they were fine. _Strange_…

"What the frak?" It was Corporal John Gams. He had his rifle pointed at a hole. "It looks like it was melted from the inside out…" he leaned closer at an angle and threw in a camera ball. "Let's see what we can…" the ball started to move down the ventilation shaft but the video fuzzed and went dead. "Frak."

"Could be some sort of interference. Let's stay on the hop, corporal," Burrell said as he tapped the Marine on the back of the shoulder as he moved by.

Burrell scanned his area and kept his breathing steady. Despite that he could feel his chest heave and sweat trickled down passed his ear and tickled his neck as it disappeared underneath his collar and armored vest.

There was nothing but the sounds of footsteps and the hum of machinery and gravity plating. All normal sounds he'd have expected.

The lieutenant held up a hand. The map projected onto his combat goggles showed they were near where Prosna had been assigned his work detail. He used hand signals to move his Marines forward. Two covered the rear and others covered a side corridor. Burrell and Gams moved up, along with two Marines.

They came around the corner.

No one was there. "Burrell to Galactica Actual… we're at the work site, negative on contacts. No sign. Bravo Lead, status?"

Gunny Mathias's voice crackled over the coms. "_Negative on contacts, Alpha Lead… shit… wait one…"_

The com unit cut out. Burrell felt his stomach churn and a tingle run up and down his spine. He swallowed. His grip tightened. And it happened so fast.

Nothing was happening. No signs of these 'bugs' Prosna had described in his mad death rant to the commander. No sign that Socinus was even dead… then it happened.

In seconds the sounds of something scurrying towards the Marines was all around them. Holes formed above them and on the bulkhead separating the corridor from other compartments. Dozens of holes and _things _began crawling through. The holes disgorged dozens, hundreds of bug-like mechanical monsters, which scurried towards them from all directions.

This was an ambush.

"Open fire!" Burrell yelled. He pressed his battle rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. He shot at two of the mechanical monstrosities trying to come from a hole and then turned his fire on a second hole and then a third that appeared. "Alpha Lead to Galactica Actual!" Static. "Galactica Actual!" More static.

His Marines were shooting in all directions. Combat discipline began to fade, trigger discipline was almost non-existent as more and more of these monsters replaced the ones that were shattered by their bullets.

"There's too many!" Someone yelled. "We need to get outta here!" Another screamed. "Oh frak!" Yelled another until a blood curling cry of pain met the ears of every Marine.

The team saw a bug spit acid onto a Marine as the young man tried to cover his face with his hand. The synthetic material of his glove melted near instantly, followed by flesh that dripped onto his face and chest, and finally tendon and bone. He screamed and screamed. The bug reared back, ready to spit acid once again, and Burrell charged forward and kicked it off.

The acid sprayed wildly and Burrell yelled a curse and fell to a knee. A tiny and what should have been insignificant amount of acid got on his pants. A drop. A small drop. But it was enough to burn a tiny hole into his leg. It was excruciating, debilitating. He held back the scream. He focused his strength and grabbed his Marine and pulled him to his feet. The young man was about to pass out form the shock but Burrell yelled at him to stay with them.

Burrell ordered the retreat. He pulled back Gams who was firing and not moving.

He felt the private fall and Burrell turned back. A bug had latched onto the Marine's leg and jabbed its mechanical appendage into the calf of the young man. It used its mechanical appendages like knives, tearing and slashing into flesh. He fell to a knee and a second bug jumped onto his back and stabbed him again. A third bug and a fourth jumped on and swarmed over the body, stabbing it and spraying it with acid.

His Marine yelled and grabbed at Burrell for help.

The lieutenant felt the horror rush through his body, tear into his mind, confuse and enrage him. He released a spent magazine, threw a grenade down at his dying Marine to end his torture as his team rounded the corner, and with a disciplined hand put in a fresh magazine into his weapon. He shouldered it and as he walked backwards shattered two of the bugs and a third and a fourth.

Then his team took its next casualty.

A bug had jumped onto Corporal Jen Fern. It dug its claws into her chest like her armor wasn't even there. She screamed but the sound was muffled as she gurgled up blood. Her eyes rolled back and she collapsed to the deck, dead.

Corporal Gams fired on the bug. It was torn apart. "There's too many of them!" He yelled over the roar of automatic gun fire. An explosion almost threw them all to the deck. "Frak..!"

Lt. Burrell could taste blood in his mouth. He spit onto the deck and used his sleeve to wipe his lip. With what little strength he had left he rolled from his stomach onto his back and fired and fired again at the oncoming swarm of these murderous and bloodthirsty attackers.

He tried the wireless again: "Alpha lead to Galactica Actual, respond. We need reinforcements!" Nothing but static answered him. He couldn't raise Bravo.

The young man looked around. He could feel his emotions pushing passed his training. He could feel the fear running straight towards him, ready to bust through his walls and incapacitate him. He could feel his body's desire to curl up into a ball in the corner and just wait for, accept death. _No_.

He saw the exit. "Move it! We're almost there!" He pulled back his Marines with one hand while using the other to fire. He ejected another spent magazine and placed in a new one. The mechanical bugs were exploding left and right.

He lost another Marine when a swarm broke through their fire. They were _so close_ to the exit.

"Move!" They fired. They did everything they could. Someone threw a grenade. It cleared the corridor for precious seconds until dozens more of the mechanical monsters swarmed passed.

He stepped through the hatch and began to pull it shut. "Gams, let's move it!"

"Coming L.T.!" He yelled. The corporal turned and stepped. Then stopped.

"Gams!" Burrell held out a hand. "Gods…" A bug crawled over Gams's shoulder then dug its appendages through his collar bone and straight into his chest. Gams fell to the ground, his eyes staring back at the lieutenant. A second bug crawled over him and sliced at his neck.

Burrell stood motionless.

Then he felt himself being pulled back. And as the hatch slammed shut Gams disappeared.

* * *

Commander Adama felt the loss. They were _his _Marines now, _Galactica_ Marines. His eyes searched the schematics of _Galactica_ and already he was working on a plan to defeat those mechanical monsters. Cylons? _Why are they here?_

Then was relief as the wireless clicked on and the tac displays showed Lt. Burrell's wireless come alive. His voice was hard and heavy and there was pain underneath the grizzled tone.

"_We took eight casualties between the two teams, sir,"_ Adama could hear Burrell say over the wireless, which was still filled with intermittent static. "_Uploading our video.._. _the… bugs… they were mechanical sir. They're not like anything I've ever seen anywhere, sir. They spit acid. Killed a lot of good men and women. And they used their appendages as stabbing weapons_."

"We're quarantining the entire section, lieutenant," Adama said, "let the medics take care of you and your men." He saw the dots of additional Marine fire teams taking up positions. _Are there enough…?_

"_Aye, sir. Can't send video, busted… I'm sending the gunny up to get you the video… fill you in… frak!"_ The wireless shut off after one of the medics was heard telling him to lay back and be still.

Commander Adama informed the fleet commanders of what happened.

Commander Adama turned towards a video screen, which has Admiral Nagala's image, as well as other fleet commanders and Major Upland. He saw the FID operative with a worried look, and the admiral… Adama knew the admiral had already made a decision. "Admiral, we have to evacuate the _Galactica_ and contain this."

"Evacuate as many as you can, commander. We need to… contain this… send your evac ships to-" Nagala's image fuzzed out and blurred. His voice was distorted. "Commander. Commander, are you there?"

"We're still here, sir," Adama said. He looked to the side. Major Spenser looked tense and was cupping his chin in his hand. Captain Kelly's eyes were scanning the internal readouts of _Galactica_. Starbuck looked ready to charge headlong into this… _infestation_. "We have two platoons of Marines stationed in the vicinity, admiral. We're arming every crewman we can but-"

"This threat has to be contained, commander." Off screen, to where Adama couldn't see, Nagala was doing something. "_Atlantia_ and her escorts will remain here with _Galactica_."

At that moment Gunny Mathias entered the CIC. She looked like she'd seen hell, and barely lived to tell the tale. Her uniform was ripped. There was blood on her face and her hands. She smelled like gunpowder and sweat. Dirt and grime were everywhere on her.

She tried to throw up a salute. "Sir."

"Gunny, thank the gods you made it," Kelly said as he stepped forward and let her take his place. He took the memory card from her. "We-"

"There were a few seconds where we didn't think we'd make it." She swallowed. Adama saw that her eyes were glassy, distant. "Everything's on the video."

Kelly slid the card into a reader slot and brought up the video. It was Burrell's team and it was fast and savage.

"His team never had a chance," Kelly said. Major Spenser closed his eyes and shook his head. Adama saw something worrying in the major's eyes when he glanced back up, before looking back down at the floor.

Adama was about to speak when Upland leaned forward. Her image was grainy and there were lines of static running up and down. The image resolved fully then snow began to appear and wash out the color and detail.

"_Commander… these may be the… that SG1 briefed… no one believer them… if they're the… you must destroy them… or… they called… replicators…have to…"_

The image completely vanished. Kelly was tapping on commands and had called over to Ensign Gaeta. Commander Adama kept a stone-like expression as his eyes stayed focused on the snow-filled screen. These… creatures… _replicators_… they were once again proof the Colonies were still woefully uninitiated on the galactic scene, and their very name evoked a feeling of horrible, dreadful thoughts on _why _they were called that.

Gaeta had taken off his headset and swirled around in his chair. "Transmitter's there but we're picking up odd signals from inside the quarantined section. Something's-"

The lights flickered and they were in darkness.

* * *

Emergency lights had activated within seconds. The hanger deck was bathed in an emergency red that cast shadows in every direction. Crewmen were already grabbing generators. Marines were rushing knuckle draggers, snipes, and everyone else to rescue and evac ships. A group of near a hundred were crammed on a lift as it rose upwards towards awaiting rescue transports.

"Get a move on, get a move on! Third round of evac birds leave in thirty seconds!" Tyrol yelled as he made his way through the crowd. He clapped to motivate some of his work crews to pick it up. "Let's go! Tarn! We got plenty of those back in the Colonies, leave everything! Go! Go!"

He helped push guide a few people up a Raptor. He wiped sweat from his brow.

Chief Tyrol had heard the evacuation klaxon six minutes ago. Already the crew was moving like the well-oiled machine the years of drilling trained into them.

He heard some light footsteps- somehow in the roar of so much commotion he didn't know- and turned. Tyrol stopped and his mouth fell open. He quickly composed himself. "Cally? Get out of here, you heard the evac order." He was frantically pointing and gesturing towards an awaiting ship down the bay.

"Chief!" The young woman protested, wide eyed and with a pitied look on her face, "if you don't leave with us you'll be stuck here until the first flight returns."

Tyrol put on his best fake smile and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I've been through worse than just Cylon boarding parties, Cally. Now go." He pointed. "I'll be behind you in the next wave of evac buses, I swear." The chief put up a hand to pretend swear. He grabbed a passing Marine and told him to watch her and make sure she actually did get on one of the evac buses.

A few minutes passed, and Tyrol was feeling less trepidation, less nervous about his fate. When he'd seen part of the CIC crew come through he'd had an 'oh shit' moment, but they'd be evacuated per the Old Man's orders. Tyrol knew Adama would stay until the last and if the Old Man was staying, he was, too.

He picked up the sound powered telephone and jabbed the old button for 'CIC.' Part of the first 'C' was rubbed off from years of wear and tear. "_CIC, Ensign Gaeta."_

"Is the commander available? It's Tyrol."

There was a pause.

"_Chief? Tell me the good news."_

"We've got half the crew evacuated and…." The chief stopped talking. Something was about to happen. There was a shift in the deck plates, subtle, but he felt something rumble. A tingle came up his spine. His eyes scanned the hanger bay. He put his hand on the bulkhead and closed his eyes. "Sir… the-" yellow lights enveloped the hanger deck. There were two quick buzzes, followed by a longer third whine. "Sir, the pod's retracting!"

Tyrol looked around. The work crews had stopped. Everyone was standing. He put back the phone and started to move towards the center of the bay. And he heard the strangest sound of clattering, a strange sound, almost like rain, like a tapping of water on a tin roof which grew louder and louder, and it was coming from everywhere.

* * *

Commander Adama picked up the sound powered but Tyrol was gone. He hit the button to transfer the call to the nearest sound powered close to the quarantine zone. _Nothing_.

"Sir?" Captain Kelly was standing opposite him at the command plot. He had a pistol strapped to his leg now. There were Marines in the CIC. "Gaeta tried to reach our Marine teams. No luck."

Adama kept his eyes on the ship's readouts, which were streaming by on the monitors. But they weren't refreshing properly and the red that should indicate retracted pods was still green, indicating extended. "The replicators are into our computers."

Ensign Gaeta was up and standing near Kelly. "I can take the networks offline." Adama nodded at Gaeta for him to do just that.

"Why the hell would they retract the pods? If they're trying to take over the ship, why have more of us here?" Spenser asked. He was tapping his finger quickly. "Makes more sense to let us all leave."

"Is that what they're doing? I thought they just wanted to kill us all…" Kelly quipped. "My dad told me stories during the Cylon War, boarding parties would try to fight on our ships for as long as possible, disabled them, and force other ships to 'watch' them… they knew we wouldn't fire on our own people."

Adama gave him, all of them, a '_don't bet on it'_ look. "They're not Cylons."

Starbuck scoffed. "They're _machines_, captain. Is there ever a reason we can understand?" She'd somehow managed to procure a battle rifle. "I think the only thing we need to focus on is _killing them_."

The captain smirked, but his smirk quickly faded and his eyes grew grim. "Commander, what did that woman mean…? SG1? Replicators? Is that what these are?"

"There's a lot that's still classified, captain."

Starbuck spoke up. "I can grab everyone I can find, get to the armories. What about going in with everything we have? Push in hard and fast. Demo charges at key sections." She slammed her fist into her palm. "We can do it. These things go down to our bullets. That's _all_ we need to know."

Gunny Mathias looked at her like she was some mad woman. "They massacred our teams, ensign." Her jaw was open as she tried to find the right words. "_Marines. _There's no way-"

Starbuck protested. "We can't just sit here and do nothing." She looked towards the commander. "We don't just roll over and die!"

"Starbuck's right," Adama said. "Gunny. Get her one of your Marines and have them escort her to the armory. Everyone's trained in basic firearms. If these things are building more of themselves-"

"How can they do that?" Mathias interrupted and then had a sheepish look at the breach of protocol. The demands of the situation forgave her.

"Gunny…" Adama was slow with his words, "what we've seen out there in the last couple of years… what we've heard exists… it's beyond our nightmares. These _things_… are… worse… We need every hand holding a gun and fighting back if we're going to keep this ship."

"Aye, sir. Starbuck," Mathias turned to the woman, "with me. Sergeant Kaska will get you to the armory."

The commander watched the two leave. "Lt. Burrell, organize your men. The defense of CIC is a priority until we can evacuate or reclaim the ship. Any action we take will need a nerve center." He brought up a schematic of the area. "If we lock down the hatches here and here," he pointed, "we can funnel the bugs into two approaches, which leaves us a choice of exit."

The lieutenant was leaning up against the command plot obviously injured. "I have fifteen Marines to cover those two approaches. I want to keep at least six in CIC to serve as a reserve for whichever approach needs it." He tapped a secondary display. "We still have about a hundred Marines around the ship. Most would be in the pods or engineering. They'll try to rendezvous with us here."

"Get with your men, organize them as you see fit." Adama turned his attention to Kelly. "We have to-"

There was a power drain and they all felt light headed, with an unease that washed over the CIC personnel. Adama felt his gut twist into knots and Kelly looked sick. Starbuck gave him a look. She didn't say a word, but her lips mouthed an 'oh frak.'

Ensign Gaeta shouted out what everyone knew had just happened: "Commander! We've jumped!"

There were moans and creaks in the Old Girl as Lt. Burrell stood quietly with his men. He was stoic. Remote cameras set up to monitor distant corridors with approaches to CIC had gone to static. Wireless was spotty at best. He knew there were hold-outs all over the ship. He could hear the gun fire from time to time. He knew of a large group trying to make its way out of engineering to the auxiliary landing bay.

He had faith that whatever these creatures were that Colonial firepower would prevail. They were susceptible to gunfire, he knew that.

"Frak, you think they got the runners, LT?" Gunny Mathias asked.

"Pray that they didn't," Burrell responded as he licked his lips. If the runners were gone they couldn't re-establish contact with the Marine units spread throughout the ship.

Lt. Burrell heard their approach. He leveled his rifle as the sounds of these mechanical monsters began to approach. And suddenly, they stopped. The emergency lights were bathing many of the corridors in eerie shadows.

"I don't like this, L.T.," Gunny Mathias said quietly. She too had her rifle ready. She swallowed loudly and cringed.

"We'll take care of this… infestation, gunny," Burrell noted. "They go down easy to our weapons. We just need to push hard."

He readied his Marines. There were five, including himself, guarding this section of the corridor. They were armed with explosive rounds to annihilate any sort of initial assault. There was plenty of ammunition between the five, as well as additional rifles stacked on the bulkhead just in case.

The other approaches to CIC were covered by additional Marines. They'd managed to pull up a few squad weapons as a last ditch 'just in case' right outside the CIC.

"Sir…"

It was a worried voice. It was from Private Vance, a new transfer to _Galactica_ straight out of training and LOGNA.

"Hold to it, private." Burrell turned his head as footsteps approached from the rear. "Ensign, major, are you two joining us for the fun?"

Gunny Mathias looked back. "Starbuck, Dipper, good to have you both with us. We could use the extra firepower." She nodded to their battle rifles.

Starbuck cracked a grin. "Pow, pow, pow."

"Stow it, Starbuck," Dipper hissed. "Keep yourself focused."

Lt. Burrell noticed that Dipper's voice was shaky. He knew the pilot was afraid. But frak, they all were. Burrell felt gods damned impotent standing there with only a handful of his Marines, _standing_ as gods knew how many of his men and women were being slaughtered on the other decks or how many of the crew was still holding out and waiting rescue by the Marines.

He knew that his men and women were well-trained and that they'd organize themselves. He knew the crew would go for the armories and organize search/rescue/kill parties. He'd read of ships during the Cylon War in far worse shape with legions of Cylon boarding parties that had fought them off and lived to fight another day.

He wanted to _do something_. Not sit by and just defend. It spat in the face of all his training. Every school he'd been to engrained _offense_. Taking the fight to the enemy… he felt sweat drip down his forehead as he thought of this. He felt his heart pound in his chest as the lights began to flicker more and more. The Old Girl groaned again. His ears ticked as he heard gun fire far in the distance, carried down the corridor, around corners. He couldn't place it.

Private Vance broke the pregnant silence. "Why don't we go out and do something, sir?" His tone bordered on demanding.

Lt. Burrell knew the waiting could kill his unit's cohesion just as much as the enemy could. "We hold on, follow orders, and-"

There was a moan that cut him off and forced him and the squad to tense. Shoulders felt the push of individual rifle butt stocks and muscles tensed. Sweat dripped down the cheeks of everyone standing guard. Clothes stuck to their sweaty wearers. Breaths were slow and light.

A shadow began to _lurch_ down the corridor. There was the mechanical chirping and clanging of the damned bugs. Then they stopped as the shadow approached. Lt. Burrell ordered his squad to ready their weapons.

"My gods!" Vance said. "No…" Mathias added. "What the frak…" was what Spenser added. Starbuck was silent, staring down the sight.

"Lower your weapons!" Burrell ordered and he swiped his hand down to give the signal. "That's Gams! Gams survived! Vance, with me, we gotta get him before the bugs come."

"How the frak did he survive the fraking ambush?" Mathias asked. Her mouth was open. She was wary. And her rifle was at a high ready.

Gams stopped. His eyes were glassy. He reached out. His uniform was tattered and there were cuts along his arm and torso. "Help…" he fell to one knee.

"LT, I'm not-" Mathias started. "LT?"

Something happened to Lt. Burrell. He rushed forward. Starbuck yelled for him to stop. Mathias ordered a Marine back that followed. Private Vance leapt up and was on the heels of his lieutenant.

"Gams, thank the…" Burrell was within arm's reach. He stopped mid-stride. Then his heart stopped.

He saw one of the _things_ on his back. He saw the blocks under his skin, torn into his clothes. Slashes and cuts on his chest and neck… there was no explanation for how Gams was alive. He _wasn't_. "Gams…."

The dead Marine, with superhuman speed, grabbed Burrell and pulled him in. His fist contacted the lieutenant's face as the built Marine tried to fight back. Vance threw up his rifle and readied to fire but Gams grabbed the barrel and yanked it so hard that it broke Vance's finger and pulled him forward to the ground, breaking his nose and scrapping his face.

Blocks formed over Gams' arm and fist. He reared back and slammed the fist into Burrell's chest, caving it in. He threw the lieutenant back, who landed dead by the Marines.

Vance was already dead as replicators swarmed over his body as they detached from Gams' back.

"Open fire!" Mathias yelled.

Rifles fired and metal ripped into Gams who went down to bullets and explosive rounds which tore him apart. Replicators exploded into showers of blocks as explosives made hard contact. Vance's body was shredded by bullets and explosives. A replicator detached from Gams, scaled the bulkheads and jumped forward to a Marine, spraying acid and burning through his armor before the Marine could take it off.

The screams were blood curling. Major Spenser backtracked, yelled something no one heard, and wildly fired his rifle. A stray bullet struck a Marine in the calf and he fell back from the friendly fire. The replicator jumped off the Marine with the burning and smoking chest and latched back onto the bulkhead.

More replicators were out near Gams' body and Vance's. They were coming fast. And they were swarming over the dead.

"Frak this!" Spenser yelled. He was getting back to CIC.

"Keep firing, hold the line!" Mathias urged as she let a spent magazine fall and clatter to the deck. She stepped back just as a replicator sprayed acid. It burned the bulkhead. She fell to a knee, pulled her sidearm and shot the replicator with two well-placed bullets.

Another bullet tore the leg off another attacker and a rifle burst ended its short existence. Mathias continued to fire until she sensed she had time to grab the Marine injured from friendly fire and just _pull_.

"We gotta get outta here!" Starbuck yelled. She back peddled and slung her rifle and grabbed an HE grenade from her pouch. "Get back!" She grabbed one of the last Marines and yanked him.

Two were providing covering fire and tearing into the replicators. They paused and retreated just behind a bend. They could hear far more approach.

She tossed the grenade, ran and took cover as an explosion ripped through the corridor. She felt the heat on her back and the hair on the back of her neck burn. She pulled back a hatch and locked it tight and Starbuck started running towards the ship's nerve center.

They had to evacuate CIC.

* * *

They moved fast. Adama, Starbuck, Kelly, Gaeta, Mathias, Dipper, and a part of the CIC staff. There was barely time to breath as the group made its way through the bowels of the mighty and gargantuan battlestar.

Commander Adama held up a fist, and the group halted. Starbuck came up to his right and Gunny Mathias on his left. Mathias moved forward slowly as Adama and Starbuck covered her.

"Where to, boss?" Starbuck asked.

The Old Man considered his options. Kelly came up beside them both.

"Sir, with boarding protocols crew would be forming into pockets. We should take the fight to the bugs," Kelly advised.

"Blow the ship," Starbuck offered.

Adama nodded. "We'll try and retake the ship if-"

Gunfire erupted from the rear of the formation. A crewman was firing his pistol and soon the _bangs_ of a half dozen firearms were heard. There were screams and shouts.

Starbuck raced back and faced the oncoming swarm of mechanical monsters. She fired into one that jumped at an injured crewman, who she tried to pull forward, but he was overweight and difficult to move. He was moaning and yelling. "Frakking get up!" She screamed and fired her rifle one handed. The recoil bucked it back. Only her first bullet succeeded in damaging a single replicator.

She could hear the Commander shouting orders to form up. But younger crewmen scared out of their minds were rushing forward and preventing the commander and Mathias from getting to the rear. A Marine went down to two replicators.

"Left, Starbuck!" Dipper yelled. He and she both fired simultaneously as a large replicator- a beetle more than a bug- charged at the group.

A second Marine was firing right, taking down replicators with precision bursts. A young crewman, little more than a grown kid, was firing his pistol too fast to take aim. It clicked and clicked and he was paralyzed from realizing a need to load a new magazine.

Within seconds they were being pushed back, but the crewman didn't fall back. He couldn't move.

"Get back!" The Marine by his side shouted over the road of gunfire.

Smoke was filing the corridor. Acrid fumes were beginning to waffle down from replicators burrowing holes through the decks and bulkhead with their acids.

A second and third mechanical beetle charged around the corridor. Both made speed towards the isolated crewman. He screamed and back peddled, but a replicator rushed by and slashed an appendage into his calf. He collapsed.

"Fire on those things!" Starbuck yelled as she shifted fire. Her rifle clicked and she quickly changed magazines. Her bullets dinged on the bulkhead, knocked one beetle back, and quick bursts from Dipper finished it off.

The other beetle was too close. It leapt onto the crewman, burrowed its metallic, blocky appendages into his chest and as he screamed pincers materialized as blocks rearranged. It bit off its head, which fell on the dead along with the collapsing body.

"Frak!" Dippper yelled. They all focused their fire on the beetle. It exploded into a shower of blocks.

"Starbuck, Dipper!"

Starbuck heard the commander yelling for her. She chanced a glance back and the group was becoming separated. Starbuck saw something happening above. Melted and gooey metal dripped down. Remnants of acid spray hit the Marine who'd been by her side and he began to yell at the pain as the liquid ate away at skin and muscle and began to poison his blood.

Replicators dropped from the holes above. Starbuck and Dipper turned and began to fire at the decks and bulkheads above them.

A replicator lunged onto the head of another crewman, and a second latched onto his back. They dug their appendages into his body and tore. Skin was opened and muscle was shredded and blood sprayed everywhere, onto Starbuck and onto Dipper.

Too much smoke was filling the area. Starbuck and Dipper were being pressed into a corner and separated from the main group. More screams.

She fired and fired, destroying one bug after another. It was dark from the smoke.

Dipper fired until he was out of ammunition for his rifle, which he threw down and opened fire with his pistol. He loaded an explosive round and shot it off into a pack of near a dozen replicators swarming the corridor. The blast's light blinded him and his ear rung.

Starbuck shielded her eyes and saw spots everywhere. Whatever moved she fired at. She could barely hear the cracks of gunfire.

He let a spent magazine fall to the deck. His hands felt two more. He loaded one and began firing. His pistol jerked from the quick fire.

Starbuck was isolated. She'd moved a few steps away from Dipper in the intensity of the battle and she could feel her heart racing, thumping in her chest and struggling to break free. She was breathing rapidly and her eyes stung from fumes and sweat.

Suddenly she felt something knock her to the deck.

Starbuck kicked back at a replicator. She yelped from kicking the bug but it was knocked far enough away she just barely managed to bring her rifle to bear and fire two rounds into its face.

"Commander!" She yelled. "Help!"

She fired again. She saw Dipper. She tried to yell for his help. For a moment she made eye contact, but he turned and made his way back to the group, firing his pistol at anything that could move.

Starbuck growled, bore her teeth and cursed.

As she tried to bring her rifle back up a replicator scurrying over her arm and slashed at it. The pain was excruciating and she lost the grip on her rifle. It was on her chest.

And from the smoke Commander Adama rushed forward. He didn't have a shot. He could see the replicator positioning to kill Kara, to jab its blocky forward legs into her chest.

He grabbed it as it brought its legs down and slashed into his forearm. He yelped in pain and with all his might threw it as far back as he could. Kelly was beside him and the captain destroyed the bug with well-placed shots as Adama grabbed at Starbuck and pulled her up.

As Starbuck turned one of the larger bugs stopped and made ready to pounce. It wiggled its stubby, metallic pseudo wings. Then as it prepared to leap it was shattered from ear-piercing gun fire.

Starbuck turned and saw Dipper, who'd materialized from the smoke behind Adama and his gun barrel was smoking. She nodded to him and he took down another replicator.

She grabbed her rifle and they fought for their lives.

* * *

Galen Tyrol knew they were fraked. He had a sense about things like this. His stomach had been giving him fits prior to the attack on Delmak and now… now it was in full out open rebellion.

He heard Cally gasp as they rounded a corner. Tyrol shot her a look that said in no kind way to 'shut the frak up.' He had no idea what these things were capable of hearing and no idea what sort of sensors were built into them… he had no idea _where_ those sensors even were.

Tyrol slowed for a second and closed his eyes and cursed himself. He regretted the look he'd given Cally and he couldn't blame her for gasping. The carnage was extensive. Bullet casings were everywhere. Holes were melted, blasted, or shot into the bulkheads everywhere. They'd already passed dozens of bodies mangled, burned, and butchered. He'd almost slipped on blood twice already, only for Cally to catch him both times.

He put up a fist.

Cally was up beside him. Three more deck hands were behind her. And a Marine they'd found was behind them, taking up the rear security. "What is it, Chief?"

Tyrol kneeled down. He used a rifle he'd taken from a dead Marine to poke at the mechanical bug. "It looks like its still-"

"Alive?" Cally asked, her voice filled with equal amounts terror and awe.

"I don't know…" Tyrol poked it again.

"You think it's a Cylon weapon, Chief?"

Chief Tyrol licked his lips. He put the rifle over his knees and cupped his chin. His eye ticked and he wiped sweat from it. "I don't… no, it's not Cylon. Look." He pointed. "There's no obvious optics, no obvious sensors… frak, Cally, I don't know how these things see, hear, or move… we shoot them and they just fraking… _fall apart_. Cylons had power cores, gears… What the frak is making them move? What's powering them? Nothing about this is consistent with Cylon technology…"

"But we can still kill 'em," Cally pointed out.

Tyrol huffed at her to-the-point observation. "Yeah, Cally, we can still kill them," he said dryly. Tyrol was going to reach for the bug, try and manipulate it with a small screwdriver he had in his pocket when he heard more noises. "Up, up, up…. Take position over there. George!"

George, the Marine, came up and readied a grenade. These machines went down fast to explosives. And they weren't going to go without a fight.

Suddenly the figures emerged.

Tyrol breathed a sigh of relief. Survivors. Each group stopped and stared for a moment.

"Commander…"

* * *

Adama grimaced as he moved his arm. The pain shot into his shoulder and around his back. He flexed his hand and opened and closed it from a fist. Starbuck was across the compartment with a look of desperation. Gaeta was starring at the deck plates and Captain Kelly was leaning against a bulkhead while Major Spenser was checking his magazines with an unblinking look that had the commander worried.

"Everything alright, Dipper?" The commander asked with a voice that did its best to hide any fear and convey some sense of fleeting and desperate hope. "We're close to the hull now."

"Sure, commander…" the major said quietly. Dipper started to take magazines out of his vest and lay them on supply crates.

Chief Tyrol and Cally were huddled off in a corner. She was clinging to him like…

The Old Man shook his head and bit his lip. He ran his hand down to the sling of his rifle and placed it on a storage container. His vest was dirty and grimy and he smelled horrible. Part of his uniform was torn and there were blood splatters along the knees, where he'd knelt trying to keep fallen crewmen from bleeding out.

_This is it_… _this is how it ends…_

There was a cling and a bang. "Oh gods!" Dipper yelled. "They found us."

"Shush!" Starbuck scolded. She held her finger up to her lips. "Listen." She calmly walked over to a bulkhead and leaned close. "It's gunfire. It's gunfire!" She got on all fours and put an ear to an air vent. "There's still people alive out there and fighting."

"Fighting?" Spenser was up and on his feet. "How many bodies are lying in the corridors? Dozens… _hundreds_…" he sneered and turned. Then he turned back to Starbuck. "You stupid, naïve bitch. We're done for. Are you blind? Did you see what they did to… to Gams? I won't…" he was shaking his head.

Starbuck gave him a puzzled look. One where she was saying 'I can't believe you just said that' sort of look. Her nose wrinkled like she smelled something awful. "There's always hope if we have faith." She gulped. "There's _always_ hope."

"She's right. I have a plan," Adama declared. He looked towards Tyrol. "Gaeta, can we extend the flight pods?"

The ensign sighed and closed his eyes. He rubbed his forehead. "Um… no… I tried. Those things locked us out of the system. We'd have to manually extend them… that'd take dozens of people at different points on the pod."

"Wait!" Tyrol shot up. He started wagging his finger. "Wait! A raptor was unloading supplies at the auxiliary landing bay oh-nine. It should still be there."

"Then we head there. We also end this infestation once and for all. The secondary missile bay is two levels down from the auxiliary landing bay." Adama saw eyes go wide. "We grab a tac-nuke and set it off inside the ship," Commander Adama said as he grabbed his rifle and walked over to the air vent. He crouched down. "Gunfire. Starbuck's right. We have faith _in ourselves_ we can do this. We're Colonials. We don't give up." He stood and looked everyone in the eye. "You hear me?"

Major Spenser snorted. "Then fight those bugs and watch your face get melted off." Commander Adama moved towards the major. "Don't." He held up his hand like a stop sign. It was cut up, with dried blood at the fingertips. His sleeve was torn on his flight suit. Those were the minor injuries Dipper had. "Just don't commander." He tapped his chest. "I saw what those things did to Gams. They freaking took over his body. I could see it in _his eyes_. He was still there." His chin dimpled. "I won't let that happen to me."

Commander Adama swallowed slowly and quietly. A noise distracted him, something that sounded like banging, and the entire group of survivors focused on the hatch. When it passed he was able to relax, let his shoulders drop and take a breath. "Major… listen…" his voice was stern and hard, military-like. They needed a leader, not a father. They-

He heard a _BANG!_

Adama jumped around. The way he turned he saw Starbuck first. There was blood on her face and she had a horrified, frightened look. She was shaking. She was afraid to move.

The commander's eyes tracked down. Lifeless eyes stared back.

Dipper had shot himself in the head.

* * *

Adama, Kelly, and Tyrol moved quick and cautious around the bend in the corridor. Adama stopped and scanned the darkened corridor beyond with his gun-mounted flashlight. They needed to move forward, but surprises and ambushes had forced them all into paranoia over their surroundings. These bugs were adapting quickly to their tactics.

Faint sounds of gunfire Starbuck had heard had quickly disappeared only to be replaced with eerie silence.

There were more bodies. _Not a single one wounded… barely alive… not a single one…_ Adama had thought. _Can we do this? Galactica is lost… can we survive… is the raptor even there?_

The Old Man's nostrils flared as the smell of ozone and burning flesh touched them. There were streaks of crimson at the far end and scanning the flashlight down he saw what was a hand poking out from the corner. He prayed there was a body still attached to it and hoped that whoever it was had been given a quick death by these mechanical monsters.

The hatch at the end of the corridor was right there. It was dented and marks and scars pocketed the bulkheads around it. Spent shell casings were everywhere. Had others with access had the same idea? The compartment was one of the most heavily shielded with double hatches to prevent radiation leaks and its own closed ventilation. Could there be survivors in there locked away and awaiting rescue?

Adama motioned Kelly and Tyrol forward. He could hear the chief's heavy breathing. Kelly was quiet.

He put up a hand, a fist. Both Tyrol and Kelly scanned left and right and then took covering positions next to the hatch.

"The captain and I have to turn out keys simultaneously to get in from this way, sir," Tyrol advised.

Adama nodded and took a covering position. "Do it." The Chief and captain counted down and turned. The hatch unlocked with a click Adama swore was loud enough to be heard ten decks up in CIC.

"Okay, I'll be back in a minute." Tyrol began to open the hatch.

Commander Adama put his hand on the chief's and pushed as the chief tried to pull. "I don't think so, Chief." The commander's eyes slowly moved to the display panel, which, while broken and cracked, was still barely operational. "I may be old but my eyes aren't that bad. I can see the red bars, chief."

The chief tried to pull against the commander's resistance. "Sir, I… you're-"

"The commander," Adama stated. His eyes never wavered from the chief's. He took one step forward. Chief Tyrol didn't budge and was blocking Adama's access. "We can't do this here, chief. Stand aside."

Chief Tyrol frowned and looked to Captain Kelly for support. Kelly grimaced; he closed his eyes for a brief second as the chief saw pain and despair wash over his face. Then the captain turned back to guard the approach without saying a word.

"If you can go in and out fast enough you may be okay, sir."

Adama swallowed. "We know that's not true, son."

The chief gave his silent consent and stepped aside. He took another step back as the hatch closed. The chief could hear the locks cycling. After ten seconds he heard the _thump_ of the inner hatch opening. Chief Tyrol felt a sickening and piercing pain stab at his heart as the red bars began to violently flash.

* * *

Commander Adama had the backpack with the tactical nuke in it. It was heavy on his back and the straps were cutting into his shoulder, but he couldn't stop. He ran. Starbuck ran. Tyrol ran. Kelly ran. Everyone was running as fast as they could.

Starbuck yelled out for cover and Adama glanced back as she half-turned, still running, and threw a grenade. Its explosion was deafening. Cally screamed something. Starbuck turned, ran backwards and fired at any of the replicators she thought she had a chance of hitting.

Gaeta slowed and turned and fired as Starbuck reloaded. He expended his last rifle magazine, dropped the now useless firearm as he pulled his sidearm and loaded in an explosive round. He quickly aimed and fired and the round shot out, leaving a small trail of vapor in its wake, and exploded against a far bulkhead to his left. Five, maybe six or seven replicators were blasted to pieces. And another was smashed by two bullets.

"Let's go, Felix!" Starbuck yelled as she pulled him forward. They both ran.

Adama saw them catch up in the corner of his eye. He turned and fired, sniping one replicator off the ceiling.

"Get in!" Tyrol shouted as he waved everyone forward.

Adama pushed Starbuck and Gaeta forward, then Tyrol, and he fired again as a replicator tried to enter the compartment. He kicked one away and shut the hatch with Tyrol's help.

He let himself rest against the bulkhead as the replicators pounded on the hatch. It wouldn't hold. They only had a few dozen seconds.

"Kelly," Adama called.

The captain softly pushed his way forward through the battle fatigued band of survivors. They'd picked up two more. One of the two was missing fingers and the other had burns over her legs. Both were moving on pure adrenaline and a lot of stims to ward off shock.

But their numbers had dwindled. They numbered just about a dozen.

"Sir…" Kelly was tired but he pushed his shoulders up and back and tried to stand tall in front of the Commander.

"Captain. We don't have time. I think…" Adama grimaced from the pain in his arm and a fresh wound in his side. He kept a hand up to ward off the captain. "I think if we split up, take the nuke one way, they'll follow it."

Captain Kelly was shaking his head. "Sir, we don't know that."

Adama looked him in the eyes. "The remote switch is gone, captain. It'll have to be detonated manually… it's a fifteen second timer."

He didn't see Starbuck come up on them. "Boss… wait, what are you saying?" Starbuck looked her commander in the eyes. "No. No. I won't let you, I won't-" She started going forward. Kelly grabbed her and kept her back. "Let go of me!" Kelly let her go when Gaeta came up and kept her back.

"Captain, get them to the raptor. I'll try and lead the bugs off."

Kelly sucked in a breath. His nostrils flared as he prepared. "Aye, sir." He handed the commander extra ammunition, a few grenades.

"NO! I'll do it!" Starbuck wrestled passed Kelly and Gaeta. She grabbed the commander. "Please! Don't do it!"

They could all smell the acid as the replicators began burning through the bulkhead.

"Starbuck." He grabbed her shoulders and held her. "Kara…" his eyes watered, hers did, too, but both were strong. "Take care of Zak… and Lee, especially Zak… he needs you, he loves you."

"Gods! Fraking no!" Starbuck screamed as Gaeta pulled her back and away. She tried to keep a grip on Adama's uniform. "No!"

Kelly swallowed after turning back from watching Starbuck. He saluted. "It was an honor, sir."

Adama returned the salute. He hid his pain. He buried his fate under his duty. "Get them home, captain."

Kelly nodded. "Give me ten minutes," he told the Old Man.

"Ten minutes."

Adama reloaded his rifle. He checked his pistol and made sure the grenades were in easy reach.

The Commander went to the far end of the compartment and opened the hatch and ran towards the center of the ship.

* * *

Starbuck didn't want to board the raptor. It was there, waiting for them, just as she'd prayed it would be.

Stepping on that raptor she would be abandoning the Commander. She couldn't/

Tyrol was back securing the rear hatch. There was a second hatch to the observation and control room they couldn't secure. She prayed the replicators weren't coming that way. The window wouldn't hold a tenth as long as the thick metal hatches.

She closed her eyes and just stood there. The groans of _Galactica_, the smell of the old girl, and the feel of her deck plates, her gravity, filled Kara with a sense of hopelessness. Her world was being shattered. _The Commander_ was sacrificing himself. For them. For _her_.

"Why…" she whispered. "You have so much more to give than I do. I'm a _frak up_. I get people killed." She let her rifle fall to the deck. It clattered and rested by her foot. She could feel its pressure on the side of her boot. "Frak."

She felt a tear roll down her cheek. It wasn't just for the Old Man, for Bill Adama, but for everything and everyone who was gone.

_They_ would survive. _Everyone else_ was dead.

The horrors she had seen… _had Dipper been right to…_ she choked back a sob and threw that thought away. Her fists balled. Kara felt rage. She felt sorrow and hopelessness.

Starbuck heard Tyrol yell for her. He grabbed her. "We gotta go, Starbuck!" He shouted at her. She snapped to. "NOW!" He pulled her. She didn't want to go. "Starbuck… I… I loved the Old Man. He was the best man I ever knew. He couldn't… the storage bay was flooded with radiation. He went in so I didn't have to… radiation was… too much to survive. But he got the nuke. He got it _so we could live_. Honor that!" He pulled at her.

Starbuck didn't resist him. She fell in step with him. She'd loved him, too.

The hatch on the raptor began to shut as replicators swarmed into the bay. The exterior hatch on the bay slammed shut.

Captain Kelly was there, staring at her. She looked at him as tears rolled down her eyes. Pain washed over his face.

The raptor jerked and hopped as it detached from the docking rings. Starbuck opened her eyes and her breath was stuttered. But she moved forward to the cockpit. She wasn't dead. The commander would want these people saved.

But...

_The commander would be dead soon._

* * *

Adama felt his chest heave. His uniform was bathed in sweat and blood, both his and… the blood of too many others. He kept running as fast as he could. He fired and rolled his last grenade. Something gave way, and he fell.

He fell into part of the engineering deck. He cursed and rolled onto his side.

He spat out teeth. He felt a broken nose and his face was cut up from the catwalk. Adama looked up and saw the replicators had melted a huge hole in the deck above engineering.

He rolled again and grabbed the railing and yanked himself towards the edge. He stared into the deep pit of the FTL core. Machinery was everywhere, but he could just barely make out the deep black bottom. It was easily a hundred fifty meter down to the bottom. He placed himself quickly: he was near the upper assemblies, between the starboard and port drive energizers. Which put him above the massive FTL apparatus as it spun and pumped exotic energies into the drive core.

Ahead of him the catwalk split towards different pieces of vital machinery. Not that he had to be anywhere near them, not with the nuke. He looked over the side again.

He mouthed a curse. There was _something_ on the drive core. He looked down again. No, not on it he realized, but hovering over it. Built over it. Blocky pylons extended for near a hundred-odd meters on either side and held a strange orb with spikes over the core. Energies laced between the spikes, and the bolts jumped from the spikes to the drive core.

Then his eyes followed one of the pylons… a giant mechanical bug, parts of it glowing was attached to the pylon. Energy flowed from it towards the spiked orb. And on the right side of the bug more were appearing… there would be a dull blue, almost white light, and bugs would appear. Others were crawling over the giant, glowing bug carrying pieces of the hull.

_What the… frak…_

Two things he thought of: the replicators were preparing an FTL jump- to where he had no idea- or using the core to build more bugs. He couldn't fathom what these things were doing to the core. The energy from the big bug seemed to move _towards_ the core… it _had_ to be an FTL jump. A massive one, but to where?

He could hear the bugs coming. He could hear them chirping and squawking as they rampaged through _Galactica_, consuming her and replicating. They had him in their sights. He knew that. He knew that this would be the last.

And he could see replicators scurrying around the bulkheads, racing towards him from the drive core.

He sucked in a breath, held it and then released it slowly. In those few seconds he felt calm.

He snorted. He'd given those _fraking machines_ a true, honest to the Lords of Kobol, _fight_. He'd unleash _carnage_ on them.

Dozens, maybe hundreds- he wanted to think hundreds- had been blasted to pieces by his bullets. But he was out of bullets for his rifle now. In a minute now…

Adama stared at his arm again, how wrecked it was and how broken he felt. He managed to pull himself up and he fell back to a knee. His ankle was broken, his knee twisted. He didn't say a word. He barred his teeth and pulled off the backpack.

He let the rifle lay where it'd fallen. He was out of ammunition anyway. He took out his pistol and felt its weight in his hand. It felt good. It felt right.

His ears ticked. He heard replicators. Adama unzipped the backpack and took out the manual detonator. He checked his watch. He still had a little time…

* * *

"We gotta jump, now Starbuck!" Kelly yelled.

"I'm trying!" Starbucked shouted back. "I have no gods' damned idea where we are. If we jumped without a reference we could end up any-fraking-where-"

People were yelling in the raptor. People were afraid and crying. The woman with burns had passed out and Tyrol and Cally were applying first aide as best they could.

"Just jump, we'll figure it out later!" Tyrol yelled.

"We're too close to _Galactica-_"

The star fields were completely unknown to any of them. Starbuck's eyes latched onto a green-blue nebula as it swirled in the distance… light years away. Birthplace of stars. Birthplace of planets. Life.

It was beautiful… it was-

"STARBUCK!"

"I _know_ Felix. I'm _trying to_…" Starbuck trailed off as a dozen massive flashes appeared around them. DRADIS wailed. "Oh… my… gods…"

_Cylons_.

_Baseships_.

"No… it's impossible… we didn't survive this to be killed by them!" Gaeta yelled.

Captain Kelly was in the co-pilot's seat. He activated weapons. "We have… two missiles…" he looked towards Starbuck. "Can we jump?"

Starbuck bashed the console with a fist. "No…" DRADIS blared. "They're moving in!"

"It's not fraking fair!" Gaeta protested. "No…" his protest was so weak Starbuck barely heard him as he gave up and slouched against the rear of the cockpit.

She felt her chest heave. The pressure was insurmountable. To survive _that_ and to be killed by _this_… the baseships closed in. DRADIS whined as fighters were launched. A massive baseship unlike any scene before moved within mere kilometers.

It hovered over them. It was taunting them. They were too insignificant compared to the behemoth staring them down.

Starbuck prayed one final prayer. She didn't pray for a miracle. She prayed for forgiveness.

She kept her eyes open. She would face her end.

Starbuck never felt more determined, never felt everything was _so right _as she jammed the throttle forward. "Frak this. If we're going down, we're taking something with us!" The raptor's sudden acceleration jammed them all back into their seats. Gaeta went falling backwards into the passenger compartment.

Kara Thrace's upper lip curled into a snarl as the raptor neared the baseship…

The raptor was painted, targeted. DRADIS yelped. But she flew forward, straight, and would not waver. She would show the Cylons her resolve…

She saw blue swirls and vortices to her left, above the Cylon formation. _Things_ came out.

Cylons baseships began to explode.

There was a bright white light.

_Galactica_ disappeared in a massive nuclear explosion.

And then there was darkness.

* * *

Commander Adama would die on his feet. He swore he would die on his feet staring down these monsters.

He stood. Pain burned through his body. He sucked it up.

He activated the nuclear warhead. Fifteen seconds.

Replicators fell through the hole and onto the cat walk.

He stared them down. They wanted the nuke. They wanted to save _Galactica_. Destroy the galaxy.

They lunged.

He fell backwards off the railing, clutching the backpack and holding onto the nuke.

Replicators jumped after him.

He fell towards the bottom of the drive core.

The replicators were splayed outwards, coming towards him, falling towards him, but moving so slowly…

He could feel the strange effects of the exotic energies of the core as they manipulated gravity and warped reality.

Adama felt a sensation, something he'd never felt before. He saw Carolanne, he saw Zak and Lee. He saw his sister, his father, his mother, his uncle. He saw them all. He smiled and released his hold on the nuke.

_The light was so bright…_

* * *

_AN: And that concludes Part 1 of Dust of the Stars._

_Thank you all very much for reading. There will be a Part 2 with some material posted to push the time line up a bit. Some flashbacks and whatnot._

_Please leave a review and tell me what you thought. Reviews concerning how the story has progressed, anything that may need to be worked on in part 2 (pacing, character development, who you all like to read about/don't like to read about) let me know._

_Spartan was a massive help in getting these last chapters out. Both Spartan and Dusel have been great at bouncing ideas off of and reading over material. _

_I can't give an exact time for when Part 2 will be up. But I've been working on it here and there with the first few chapters. Things are going to change and start moving fast for a lot of characters. I'd also expect to see some more Commander Cain, a bit more SG1, and some of the other canon characters._

_Thank you all again for sticking through these many hundreds of thousands of words. _


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